University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

Succession for success: an evaluation study of corporate strategy to improve employee satisfaction for women of color

(USC Thesis Other)

Succession for success: an evaluation study of corporate strategy to improve employee satisfaction for women of color

PDF

Download a page range

Download transcript

Copy asset link

Request this asset

Transcript (if available)

Content Copyright 2020 Lauren C. Young

Succession for Success:
An Evaluation Study of Corporate Strategy to Improve Employee Satisfaction
for Women of Color
by
Lauren C. Young

A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC ROSSIER SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF EDUCATION

December 2020

ii
DEDICATION
To the Black, Latinx, Asian and indigenous women who have more than earned their seat
at the table in Corporate America.

iii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
To my husband who has supported me throughout my career and through this doctoral
program, I love you so much. Your compassion, presence and willingness to listen to my
successes and obstacles at every step of the way helped make this all possible.
To my family and extended family, thank you for your encouragement from acceptance
into this doctoral program to completion of my dissertation. I appreciate all that you did to
schedule functions and get togethers around my hectic schedule and for your efforts to keep me
involved in your celebrations, weddings, and birthdays as I found quiet places to write my
dissertation.
To my professors who made a major impact on my life and reshaped the way I look at the
world, I am forever grateful to have learned from you over the past three years. Dr. Rayburn, I
hope to retain my “Pitch Princess” duties and return to your class for more semesters to come.
Dr. Ott, Dr. Bewley, Dr. Campbell, Dr. Canny, Dr. Malloy, and Dr. Samkian: you all did so
much to prepare me for this process, and you made this program worth the late nights and early
mornings.
To my committee, I appreciate you for your guidance, tough love and friendship
throughout multiple drafts. Dr. Adibe, thank you for your reminders to keep my approach simple.
Dr. Datta, thank you for your wisdom, sharp attention to detail, and your outstanding
recommendations from the first semester. I grew to love the note-taking matrix! Dr. Lepley,
you’ve been with me the longest (since MAPP!), and I really wanted you to be on my treatise
committee for my master’s degree. I’m so happy you accepted the invitation to join my
dissertation committee and be part of my greatest professional achievement. Also, to Dr. Phillips:
while you were not a formal member of my committee, I could not have written a strong Chapter
iv
5 without you. Also, thank you for your proactiveness to allow us to speak in class during the
protests for racial equality and social justice, and for always going above and beyond when we
needed you.
To my Cohort 11, you motivate me to continue to push for change and I look forward to
seeing you continue to succeed in the future. We have been through every major change in life
together, and we made it to the end together. To Cartier, Keith, and Natalie, you are my family
and you made every class, every Wednesday “stack”, and all of the work in between
manageable. Thank you for being part of my community and for your friendship. We made it!
v
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Dedication ....................................................................................................................................... ii
Acknowledgments ......................................................................................................................... iii
Table of Contents ............................................................................................................................ v
List of Tables .................................................................................................................................. ix
List of Figures .................................................................................................................................. x
Abstract ........................................................................................................................................... xi

Introduction to Problem of Practice ................................................................................................ 1
Brighton House: Behind the Organizational Context and Mission ................................................. 2
Importance of Addressing the Problem ........................................................................................... 3
Organizational Performance Status ................................................................................................. 5
Organizational Performance Goal ................................................................................................... 5
Stakeholder Group of Focus and Stakeholder Goal ........................................................................ 6
Purpose of the Project and Questions .............................................................................................. 7
Methodological Framework ............................................................................................................ 8

Review of the Literature .................................................................................................................. 8
Why Employee Satisfaction Matters ........................................................................................... 9
History of the Study of Employee Satisfaction ........................................................................... 9
Characteristics of Employee Satisfaction .................................................................................. 12
Models for Measuring Employee Satisfaction .......................................................................... 13
Three Factors that Impact Employee Satisfaction for Women of Color ................................... 14
Lack of women of color in corporate leadership ................................................................... 14
Unethical practices ................................................................................................................ 15
Retaliation against whistleblowers ........................................................................................ 17
Intersections of Factors that Impact Employee Satisfaction for Women of Color .................... 18
Higher risk for fraud .............................................................................................................. 19
Decrease in performance and productivity ............................................................................ 20
Culture of normalized retaliation ........................................................................................... 21

Knowledge, Motivation and Organization Influences ............................................................... 23
Knowledge Influences ........................................................................................................... 23
Uncovering skills sets for career progression .................................................................... 24
Bias in the promotional process ........................................................................................ 24
vi
The process of finding a mentor ........................................................................................ 25
Awareness of obstacle creation to leadership roles. .......................................................... 26
Motivation Influences ............................................................................................................ 27
The cost of revising the current succession plan ............................................................... 28
The value of revising the current succession plan ............................................................. 29
Organization Influences ......................................................................................................... 30
Cultural model influences .................................................................................................. 32
Authoritarian leadership. ............................................................................................... 32
Resistance to change ...................................................................................................... 33
Cultural setting influences ................................................................................................. 34
Restrictive rules, policies and barriers ........................................................................... 35
Vague and changing performance goals ........................................................................ 36
Conceptual Framework: Knowledge and Motivation and Organizational Context ...................... 40
Identifying the research questions ............................................................................................. 40
The conceptual framework. ....................................................................................................... 41
Methodological Framework .......................................................................................................... 43

Findings ......................................................................................................................................... 45
Declarative, Procedural and Metacognitive Knowledge ........................................................... 46
No Priority to Evaluate ENPS nor Succession Plans ............................................................ 47
ENPS Data and Succession Plans Are Underutilized ............................................................ 48
Affinity Bias and Business Unit Sizes Inhibit Corporate Advancement ............................... 52
Expectancy Cost and Utility Values in Motivation ................................................................... 55
Inclusive Succession Plans Lack Cost Value for Senior Leaders ......................................... 55
Stakeholder Goal Has Low Utility Value for Senior Leaders ............................................... 57
Organization Cultural Models and Cultural Settings ................................................................ 58
European Cultural Models Shape U.S. Leadership Behaviors .............................................. 59
Brighton House Follows Industry Cultural Settings to Maintain Stability ........................... 61

Recommendations for Practice to Address KMO Influences ........................................................ 64
Knowledge Recommendations .................................................................................................. 64
Establishing Leadership’s Knowledge of Leadership Skills Needed for Women of Color .. 66
Creating Transparency of Succession Plan Selection Criteria for Women of Color ............. 68
Removing Bias and Organizational Obstacles to Promote Women of Color into Leadership
............................................................................................................................................... 69
vii
Motivation Recommendations ................................................................................................... 70
Understanding Leadership’s Values to Motivate a Shift from Intention to Action ............... 72
Organization Recommendations ............................................................................................... 73
Rejecting the Status Quo to Stop Normalized Inequity in Hiring Practices .......................... 77
Testing Perceptions and Inspiring Industry-wide Commitments for Change ....................... 78

Integrated Implementation and Evaluation Plan ........................................................................... 80
Implementation and Evaluation Framework ............................................................................. 80
Level 4: Results and Leading Indicators ................................................................................... 81
Level 3: Behavior ...................................................................................................................... 82
Critical Behaviors .................................................................................................................. 83
Required Drivers ................................................................................................................... 85
Organizational Support .......................................................................................................... 86
Level 2: Learning ...................................................................................................................... 87
Learning Goals ...................................................................................................................... 87
Program ................................................................................................................................. 88
Evaluation of the Components of Learning ........................................................................... 89
Level 1: Reaction ....................................................................................................................... 90
Evaluation Tools ........................................................................................................................ 91
Immediately Following the Program Implementation .......................................................... 91
Delayed for a Period After the Program Implementation ...................................................... 92
Data Analysis and Reporting ..................................................................................................... 92
Summary .................................................................................................................................... 93

Limitations ..................................................................................................................................... 94
Future Research ............................................................................................................................. 95
Conclusion ..................................................................................................................................... 96

References ..................................................................................................................................... 99

Appendix A: Sampling Criteria ................................................................................................... 112
Participating Stakeholders ....................................................................................................... 112
Qualitative Interview Sampling Criteria and Rationale .......................................................... 112
Qualitative Interview Sampling Strategy and Rationale ......................................................... 113
Qualitative Data Collection and Instrumentation ................................................................ 113
viii
Interviews ............................................................................................................................ 114
Interview protocol ........................................................................................................... 114
Interview procedures ....................................................................................................... 115
Credibility and Trustworthiness .......................................................................................... 115
Interview Questions for Leadership Team Members .............................................................. 116

Appendix B: Ethics ...................................................................................................................... 119

Appendix C: Evaluation Instrument ............................................................................................ 121

Appendix D: Survey Questions for Post-Session Evaluations .................................................... 122

Appendix E: 30/60/90-Day Post-Learning Self-Evaluation Survey ........................................... 123

ix
LIST OF TABLES
Table 1 Organizational Mission, Organizational Performance Goal, and Stakeholder Goal
............................................................................................................................................. 7
Table 2 Job Satisfaction Theories (1955-1975) ................................................................ 11
Table 3 Summary of Knowledge, Motivation, and Organization Influences ................... 38
Table 4 Summary of Knowledge Influences and Recommendations ............................... 65
Table 5 Summary of Motivation Influences and Recommendations ............................... 71
Table 6 Summary of Organization Influences and Recommendations ............................ 74
Table 7 Outcomes, Metrics, and Methods for External and Internal Outcomes ............... 82
Table 8 Critical Behaviors, Metrics, Methods, and Timing for Evaluation ..................... 83
Table 9 Required Drivers to Support Critical Behaviors .................................................. 85
Table 10 Evaluation of the Components of Learning for the Program ............................ 90
Table 11 Components to Measure Reactions to the Program ........................................... 91

x
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1 Intersections and Risks of Factors That Impact Employee Satisfaction for Women of
Color .................................................................................................................................. 18
Figure 2 Conceptual Framework ...................................................................................... 42
Figure 3 Post-Program Self-Evaluation Scorecard for Senior Leaders ............................ 93

xi
ABSTRACT
This evaluation study uses the Clark and Estes (2008) gap analysis framework to review
knowledge, motivation, and organization influences on the goal to increase employee satisfaction
for women of color in corporations by adding them to succession plans for leadership roles. This
qualitative study features one-on-one interviews with a sample of the senior leadership team
from a U.S. corporation. The findings indicate a need to educate senior leadership in the areas of
diversity, inclusion, equity, and belonging through shared declarative, procedural and
metacognitive knowledge gaps. Additionally, the findings provide insight about low expectancy
value and the presence of cultural models and settings that allow senior leaders create barriers to
increase employee satisfaction for women of color. This study recommends learning strategies
and measurement tools to address knowledge, motivation, and organization gaps and aid senior
leadership with goal attainment.

Keywords: women of color, employee satisfaction, succession planning, diversity.
1
Introduction to Problem of Practice
Employee satisfaction declines for women of color when they are underrepresented in
organizational leadership. In the United States, ‘women of color’ are defined as women with
African, Latinx, Asian or Native American ancestry (Catalyst, 2020). Low employee satisfaction
for women of color is a problem for organizations due to high costs of employee turnover
combined with a loss of profitability that stems from implementing diverse perspectives into
strategies. Currently, less than 5% of senior leadership teams on the Fortune 500 list have
appointed at least one woman of color (Deloitte, 2018). According to a Catalyst study of Fortune
500 corporations from 2014 - 2018, the companies with women of color in leadership
outperformed those without representation (Catalyst, 2018). A McKinsey study of 1,000
companies in over 12 countries examined the companies in the bottom quartile for both gender
and cultural diversity in senior leadership were 29% less likely to achieve above-average
profitability than the rest of the companies in the study (Hunt et al., 2018). However, women of
color comprise less than 2% of middle managers in the Fortune 500 (Mazzoni, 2018). Their
absence from middle management also makes it difficult for leaders to represent cultural and
gender diversity in their succession plans (Mazzoni, 2018).
Corporations without women of color in leadership are also likely to have challenges
retaining diverse women at lower levels of the organization. A 2019 Gallup study learned
women of color are more likely to express dissatisfaction within their current roles (Rothwell &
Crabtree, 2019). In this study of more than 6,600 U.S. workers, 33% of African American
women and 27% of Latinx women expressed poor employee satisfaction with their corporations
due to a lack of dignity and purpose in their work, no power to change aspects about their jobs
and career advancement opportunities. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (2019) reported the July
2
2019 unemployment rate at 3.7%, the second-lowest rate in U.S. history. Shearer and Isha Shah
(2018) determined when the U.S. remains in a state of low unemployment, employees with poor
satisfaction are about twice as likely to look for a new job than those with high employee
satisfaction. As a result, corporations can lose up to $240,000 to replace and retrain each
dissatisfied employee who leaves the organization, according to the Society for Human Resource
Management (Frye, 2017).
While various studies from consulting firms such as Bain & Company (Blunt, 2018),
Deloitte (2016, 2018) and Boston Consulting Group (Lorenzo et al., 2018; Tsuaka et al., 2017)
realized a link between women of color in leadership and an increase in revenue, few studies
draw a similar conclusion between women of color in leadership and employee satisfaction. Ali
et al. (2015) conducted a study of 198 for-profit organizations and saw overall employee
satisfaction is higher and employee turnover decreases at companies with women of color in
leadership. However, the World Economic Forum conducted a study of gender disparities and
estimated it would take 170 years to close the gender gap in corporate leadership (Schwab,
2016). There is no estimate on when the gap for women of color will close in corporate
leadership (Schwab, 2016). The following research evaluates a Fortune 500 corporation and its
strategy to increase low employee satisfaction for women of color by adding more women of
color into senior leadership succession plans.
Brighton House: Behind the Organizational Context and Mission
Brighton House is an international leader in the financial services industry. With more
than 50,000 employees worldwide, customers in more than 200 countries and territories and an
investment portfolio of more than $200 billion, Brighton House ranks in the Fortune 500 for
financial services (Brighton House, 2017). Sinek (2009) believes leaders need to discover the
3
purpose of their organization and work to build a shared vision around this purpose. The mission
of Brighton House is to build a customer-led organization and allow customer feedback to direct
new product offerings and employee feedback to promote innovation and inclusion (Brighton
House, 2017). By establishing a feedback culture at the center of the corporate mission, Brighton
House’s senior leadership team believes achieving high customer and employee satisfaction is
critical to remain an industry leader.
Importance of Addressing the Problem
When employees are dissatisfied with the organizational culture and decide to leave a
corporation, it can be costly to replace lost talent. Every five years, the Society for Human
Resource Management (2019) conducts the Cost of a Toxic Workplace Report. This report
determined U.S. corporations have lost a total of $223 billion in turnover due to workplace
culture over the past five years. To retain talent, many corporations measure employee
satisfaction via one-on-one meetings, entrance/exit interviews and surveys to generate metrics
such as the Net Promoter Score (NPS) (Riveral, 2013).
Riveral (2013) defines NPS as a satisfaction and engagement metric created by Bain &
Company fellow Fred Reichheld. In an NPS survey, individuals express how likely they are to
recommend a specific organization to friends and family (Bain & Company, 2019). The answer
scale ranges from 0 - 10, with the scores of 0 - 6 equal to detractor engagement with the
organization, scores of 7 - 8 equal to passive engagement with the organization and 9 - 10 equal
to promoter engagement with the organization (Qualtrics XM Institute, 2019). To calculate NPS,
organizations subtract the percentage of detractor scores from the percentage of promoter scores:
this results in a score between -100 to +100 (Riveral, 2013). Understanding NPS allows for
4
decision-makers to form and execute decisions that impact both customer experience (either
TNPS or RNPS) and employee satisfaction (ENPS) (Qualtrics XM Institute, 2019).
Women of color continue to provide feedback via employee satisfaction surveys about
the obstacles preventing their career advancement; however, many minority advancement
initiatives established by corporate leaders have proven to be ineffective (McGirt, 2016). Kalev
et al. (2006) evaluated diversity programs of more than 700 U.S. companies and did not find
evidence of a positive impact on career advancement for women of color. U.S. corporations
spend over $1 billion each year on diversity programs and initiatives, yet only 6% of women of
color will reach, at most, a vice-president role (Agovino, 2019).
In 2018, the BCG Henderson Institute and Fortune completed a study that confirmed as
the business environment and customer needs become more dynamic, the need for women of
color in leadership, not only correlates with but is predictive of future growth (Reeves et al.,
2018). After surveying 1,000 international firms with at least $10 billion in sales, Reeves et al.
(2018) reported the organizations with women of color in leadership roles saw an increase in the
variety of perspectives and ideas to recognize new opportunities and the ability to move beyond
traditional problem solving and strategy creation practices.
In addition to the relationship between diversity and business performance, there is also a
relationship between low employee satisfaction metrics on business performance (Hunt et al.,
2018; Predictive Index, 2019). Therefore, if women of color provide detractor scores on
employee satisfaction surveys such as ENPS due to a lack of career advancement opportunities,
this may signal disengagement with their jobs, a lack of trust in leadership and a lack of purpose
within the organization (Predictive Index, 2019). For these reasons, it is important to evaluate if
5
it is sufficient for leaders to diversify their succession plans to represent and retain women of
color.
Organizational Performance Status
Women of color comprise 15% of the employees at the U.S. headquarters of Brighton
House. There are no women of color in the current senior leadership team. Employees in Vice-
President roles and higher are eligible for inclusion on succession plans. Women of color at the
rank of Vice-President or higher comprise less than 5% of the U.S. organization. Additionally,
no women of color in the U.S. organization appear on succession plans for the senior leadership
team.
Of the 526 voluntary terminations that were not retirements at Brighton House’s U.S.
offices in 2019, 44% were women and 31% of these women were culturally diverse. Of the
women of color who left the organization, 15% were at the rank of Vice-President rank or
higher. Finally, of the 1,432 filled job requisitions in 2019, 8% were women of color. However,
less than 1% of all filled job requisitions were women of color hired for roles at the rank of Vice-
President rank or higher. These statistics show that Brighton House does not have representation
of women of color in leadership and has been unable to retain or replace the women of color who
have left the organization, especially those who were eligible for consideration as future leaders.
Organizational Performance Goal
Brighton House uses ENPS as a performance metric to measure employee satisfaction
and gauge employee well-being. According to a leading customer experience measurement
platform, Medallia (2018), the Employee Net Promoter Score is calculated based on the answer
to a single survey question, “On a scale of zero to ten, how likely would you be to recommend
Brighton House as a place to work?”
6
In 2017, Brighton House’s ENPS was -11 out of a maximum of +100. ENPS for women
of color during the same time period was -43. Brighton House’s organizational goal is to increase
employee satisfaction as measured by ENPS to +50 by improving senior leadership inclusion for
women of color by December 2025. This goal was set by global leadership who use the ENPS
survey as a measurement of how Brighton House is progressing on their priorities of people,
customers and leadership after receiving criticism about the lack of women of color in leadership
roles.
Stakeholder Group of Focus and Stakeholder Goal
At Brighton House, four stakeholder groups complete the ENPS survey in the United
States. The groups include: 1) entry-level employees, 2) specialists, 3) frontline management and
department heads and 4) senior leadership. While a comprehensive analysis would involve all
stakeholder groups, senior leadership will be the focus of this study. Senior leadership includes
the Chief Executive Officer and their direct reports. The U.S. senior leadership stakeholder goal
is to achieve the organizational goal by adding 20 women of color to their succession plans by
2023. However, if senior leaders cannot leverage the ENPS feedback to understand the
challenges faced by women of color within the organizational culture, then the stakeholder goal
may not yield the intended result to increase employee satisfaction. Table 1 provides the
organizational mission, organizational performance goal and stakeholder goal for Brighton
House.

7
Table 1
Organizational Mission, Organizational Performance Goal, and Stakeholder Goal

Organizational Mission

“Diversity is key to maintain our partnerships with our customers and our employees.”

Organizational Performance Goal

By 2025, the organization will increase the
U.S. Employee Net Promoter Score (ENPS) to +50.

Stakeholder Goal

By 2023, U.S. senior leadership will add 20 women of color to their succession plans.

Purpose of the Project and Questions
This study evaluates Brighton House’s strategy to increase low employee satisfaction for
women of color by adding more women of color into senior leadership succession plans. The
analysis focuses on knowledge, motivation and organizational influences related to achieving the
organizational goals. While a complete performance evaluation would focus on all stakeholders,
for practical purposes, this dissertation focuses on the U.S. senior leadership.
The questions that guide the evaluation study and address knowledge and skills, motivation
and organization influences for the primary stakeholder are:
1. How does knowledge of low employee satisfaction as measured by ENPS for women of
color make leadership feel?
2. Does leadership acknowledge a need for new perspectives from women of color in
leadership?
8
3. What motivation does leadership have to increase employee satisfaction for women of
color?
4. Which organizational influences can leadership control that align to low employee
satisfaction for women of color?
Methodological Framework
This case study will use a modified version of the Gap Analysis by Clark and Estes
(2008) that looks at knowledge, motivation and organizational influences on the stakeholder
goal. The Clark and Estes (2008) framework was created to solve two common performance
problems within organizations: how to set and measure goals and how to analyze the cause of
performance gaps. The Clark and Estes framework focuses on three areas: knowledge,
motivation and organizational barriers. After identifying any knowledge, motivation and
organizational influences, researchers can decide how to address any gaps in these influences and
make recommendations (Clark & Estes, 2008).
Review of the Literature
The literature in this section details the root causes of a decrease in employee satisfaction
for women of color within corporate settings. This review begins with general research on the
importance of employee satisfaction to organizational performance and industry prominence.
The review will then present an in-depth discussion on three causes that contribute to decreased
employee satisfaction for women of color. These causes are a lack of women of color in senior
leadership, unethical practices and retaliation against whistleblowers. This section includes
research on the struggle many corporations face to make leadership inclusive to women of color,
the prevalence of unethical practices, and the impact of retaliation on corporate culture.
Following the general research literature, the literature review outlines the Clark and Estes Gap
9
(2008) Analytic Conceptual Framework to evaluate the knowledge, motivation and
organizational influences that decrease employee satisfaction for women of color in corporations
like Brighton House.
Why Employee Satisfaction Matters
One of the earliest instances of measuring employee attitudes began in 1933 with
psychologist Richard Uhrbrock. An analysis of 4,430 employees from a large U.S.
manufacturing facility determined employee attitudes are not only built from a collection of
experiences gained by working at the company (Uhrbrock, 1934). The study showed employee
attitudes begin to form before employees apply to the organization (Uhrbrock, 1934). However,
it was not until the 1960s when psychologists Edwin Locke and Gary Latham published research
on their practices of the Goal-Setting Theory and the Range of Affect Theory did business
leaders begin to require high employee satisfaction as an organizational goal (Locke & Latham,
2019). As the workplace environment evolved, new research emerged to help leaders achieve
high employee satisfaction when faced with challenges (Kahn, 1990; Saks, 2006; Saks, 2019).
Some of these challenges include an increased need for managerial support, building a culture of
innovation, job design with technological advances, task variety and the effects of
disengagement and burnout (Ahola et al., 2017; Kahn, 1990; Saks, 2006; Saks, 2019). As the
Millennial generation and Generation Z shape the future attitudes of the workplace, the need to
maintain employee satisfaction is critical to minimize turnover, increase productivity and help
organizations maintain a positive reputation within their industries (Hunt et al., 2018).
History of the Study of Employee Satisfaction
Initial research recognized that employee satisfaction reflects attitudes toward group
identification and self-appraisal within an organization. Between 1924 and 1945, Elton Mayo
10
and Fritz Roethlisberger implemented the Hawthorne Studies to measure employee production
and efficiency (Mayo, 1924; Roethlisberger, 1945). Through three years of empirical studies at
Pennsylvania factories and textile plants, Mayo investigated correlations between worker
dissatisfaction and fatigue, absenteeism, turnover and labor strikes (Smith, 1998). In addition,
Roethlisberger received funding and support from Harvard University to examine job
satisfaction and workers’ responsiveness to societal factors in an effort to go beyond the physical
factors initially identified by Mayo (Smith, 1998). According to Mobley (1977), Roethlisberger
became the primary researcher for the Hawthorne Studies in 1937 and spent seven years drawing
additional links between job satisfaction and included absenteeism, labor strikes and turnover.
Mobley (1977) also detailed additional theories established from research between the 1950s and
1970s to understand the impact of job satisfaction for U.S. corporations after the Hawthorne
Studies gained notoriety. Table 2 displays a summary of these research findings.

11
Table 2
Job Satisfaction Theories (1955-1975)
Researcher(s)
and
Satisfaction
Theory
Focus of Theory Satisfaction Research Findings and Assumptions
Brayfield and
Crockett
(1955)

Brayfield-
Rothe Job
Satisfaction
Theory
Cognitive appraisal of an
individual’s work situation

Individual’s overall well-
being
1. Job satisfaction does not imply strong motivation for outstanding
performance.

2. Productivity may only be peripherally related to many of the
goals toward which the industrial worker in striving.

Vroom (1964)

Vroom’s
Expectancy
Theory
Employee satisfaction, as
opposed to job satisfaction

Employee goals within an
organization

1. Despite employees having different sets of goals, employees
demonstrate satisfaction through factors such as personality,
skills, knowledge, experience, and abilities.

2. There must be a positive correlation between efforts and
performance (valence).

3. Favorable performance will result in a desirable reward
(expectancy).

4. The reward will satisfy an important need, and the desire to
satisfy the need is strong enough to make the effort worthwhile
(instrumentality).

Porter and
Steers (1973)

Job
Descriptive
Index (JDI)
Relationship between
turnover and:
1) commitment to the
organization, 2) satisfaction
with supervision,
3) satisfaction with co-
workers, 4) satisfaction with
the work itself,
5) satisfaction with pay,
6) satisfaction with
opportunities for promotion

1. Commitment to the organization is the most important variable
to identify employee satisfaction.

2. The second most important variable to measure for employee
satisfaction is satisfaction with opportunities for promotion.
Locke (1975)

Range of
Affect Theory
The gap between what an
employee has in their role and
what an employee wants in
their role

1. To understand job satisfaction, organizational leaders should not
attempt to measure it until they can define job satisfaction within
their environment.

2. Job satisfaction is the emotional state resulting from the
appraisal of one’s job as achieving or facilitating the
achievement of an individual’s job value.

12
To realize employee satisfaction, employees need to perceive compatibility between their
organizations and their individual goals. According to Lake, Highhouse, and Shrift (2018),
employees will adopt either an advancement motive or an escape motive to change jobs once
their individual goals are unmet in their current role. A study of more than 1,700 individuals saw
the escape motive was closely related to a decrease in company loyalty, decreased organizational
involvement, and a sense of withdrawal from the organization (Lake et al., 2018). Organizations
want to attract and retain the best talent, so leaders seek out opportunities to identify whether or
not employees are satisfied with a variety of characteristics.
Characteristics of Employee Satisfaction
Human attitudes are complex; therefore, no single model or study best describes all the
characteristics of employee satisfaction. Additionally, more than twenty job satisfaction scales
were created during between 1960 – 1990, and the validity of each scale may vary as employee
satisfaction is measured differently across organizations (Macdonald & MacIntyre, 1997).
Currently, the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) tracks thirty-seven aspects of
employee and job satisfaction categorized into eight groups: career development, benefits, work
environment, engagement opinions, compensation, employee relationships with management,
conditions for engagement, and engagement behaviors (SHRM, 2017). In 2016, SHRM
conducted a study of 600 U.S. employees representing 22 industries to find the top five
characteristics that generate the most satisfaction for employees (SHRM, 2017). The top five
characteristics were: ‘respectful treatment of all employees at all levels’, ‘compensation/pay,
overall’, ‘benefits, overall’, ‘job security’ and ‘trust between employees and senior management’
(SHRM, 2017, pp.6). Instead of focusing on the creation of an exhaustive set of characteristics
13
needed for employee satisfaction, some researchers decided to build models to measure
employee satisfaction.
Models for Measuring Employee Satisfaction
There are three employee satisfaction models that remain popular with today’s
organizational leaders: the Herzberg Motivator-Hygiene Theory, Hackman and Oldham’s Job
Characteristics Theory, and the Locke Range of Affect Theory. Each model has benefits and
drawbacks to implementation to consider before adopting.
In 1959, American psychologist Frederick Herzberg established the Herzberg Motivator-
Hygiene Theory, also known as two-factor theory (Hines, 1973). This model provides a two-step
process to increase employee motivation and employee satisfaction by eliminating factors that do
not motivate employees while boosting job satisfaction (Harer, 2008). Criticism of Herzberg’s
Motivator-Hygiene Theory includes this model does not consider individual differences, as it
predicts all employees view all motivating/hygiene factors as the same (Harer, 2008). Also, the
Herzberg Motivator-Hygiene Theory is not objective; satisfied employees give themselves credit
for their satisfaction, yet dissatisfied employees attribute their lack of satisfaction to external
factors (Harer, 2008).
In 1967, American psychologists J. Richard Hackman and Greg Oldham established the
Job Characteristics Theory (JCT) (Rungtusanatham & Anderson, 1996). In this model, Bowling
et al. (2018) recognized that job design affects motivation and work performance. Additionally,
skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy and feedback are evaluated in this model
to measure employee satisfaction (Bowling et al., 2018). Criticism of the JCT relates to the
validity of measurement when examining job characteristics, as these are often assessed by those
currently in the role instead of an objective third-party (Bowling et al., 2018). While these three
14
examples highlight important elements to increase employee satisfaction, many of these elements
are subjective.
In 1976, American psychologist Edwin Locke established Locke’s Range of Affect
Theory (Mento et al., 1987). Locke was already renowned in the industrial-organizational
psychology community for his Goal Setting Theory, and he gained additional recognition for the
Range of Affect Theory, which presents employee satisfaction at the intersection of what an
employee has in an organization and what an employee wants in an organization (Neubert &
Dyck, 2016). Criticism of the Range of Affect Theory includes that it is highly subjective, and it
can be difficult for leaders to understand how much or how little of each characteristic each
employee needs to be satisfied (Neubert & Dyck, 2016). To build a model that is objective and
applicable to all employees, leaders need to pivot and look at the following three factors that
decrease employee satisfaction.
Three Factors that Impact Employee Satisfaction for Women of Color
Decades of research touts the benefits of a diverse corporate leadership team, including
the increased ability to innovate, gain stronger customer loyalty, and sustain profitability
(McGirt, 2016). The following sections will focus on the impact of a lack of inclusion in
corporate leadership, the acceptance of unethical practices, and retaliation within the
organization on employee satisfaction.
Lack of women of color in corporate leadership. The benefits of having more women of
color as leaders within organizations are known, yet there are obstacles that prevent inclusion in
senior leadership. When Girdauskiene and Eyvazzade (2015) conducted a study of 3,500
employees within the same corporation, they recognized cultural diversity and gender diversity
in senior leadership helps attract candidates, evokes significant team innovation, enhances
15
decision-making abilities and builds resilience as an organization. Additionally, women are more
likely to be transformational leaders and to use interactive leadership methods, which allows
power to be shared within the organization and employees to reach their potential (Girdauskiene
& Eyvazzade, 2015).
In the 1960s and 1970s, researchers including Schein (1973) conducted studies that
stereotyped women as not suitable for leadership roles (Jonsen et al., 2010). Such stereotypes
have become the status quo as women still have a difficult time rising to leadership roles today
(Jonsen et al., 2010). For example, a 2018 study conducted by Catalyst showed women represent
45% of the professional jobs in S&P 500 corporations, but only occupy 27% of the leadership
roles and less than 5% of the CEO positions (Catalyst, 2018). Additionally, a 2019 Ellevate
report discusses how bias against women of color disproportionately affects their ascent to
leadership, especially in male-dominated industries such as finance (Ellevate, 2019). This study
of 2,600 U.S. women revealed that as culturally diverse women ascend at work, they are likely to
stop at middle management roles (Ellevate, 2019).
Finally, the Risk Management Society (RIMS) conducted a study of 1,170 finance and
insurance professionals (Smulison, 2019). In this study, men responded more negatively (80%)
than women (92%) on statements that risk management companies need more women with
culturally diverse perspectives in leadership to make better business decisions over the next five
years (Smulison, 2019). There are two unintended circumstances of leadership teams that remain
homogeneous over time: the increased risk of unethical practices and retaliation within the
organization.
Unethical practices. Unethical practices can be expensive and detrimental to an
organization, and often, homogeneous leadership is accountable for modeling unethical
16
behaviors. Individual occurrences of unethical practices, such as theft and fraud in the
workplace, cost U.S. organizations more than $600 billion each year (Ariely, 2008). In a study
conducted by KPMG of over 5,000 U.S. managers and employees, 74% witnessed at least one
form of unethical behavior in their organization in the last 12 months (Kaptein, 2011). The study
also identified the enforcement of sanctions, or the lack thereof, is connected to building the
organizational culture and the management of unethical behavior. How employees react to
unethical practices and what leadership allows as unethical behavior defines organizational
ethics culture (Kaptein, 2011).
Unethical issues within organizations with homogeneous leadership teams may go
unnoticed and unchecked. In a study of 385 companies, Torchia, Calabrò, and Morner (2015)
confirmed homogenous leadership groups are prone to groupthink, whereas diverse teams have
individuals with various perspectives. Groupthink is an occurrence when members of a group
encourage consensus and discourage dissent in any form when making decisions (Janis, 1972).
When groupthink is encouraged and accepted within a team, these individuals are less likely to
spend more time and energy to ethically complete projects and are more willing to take shortcuts
to get to a desired result (Torchia et al., 2015).
Finally, Resick, Hargis, Shao, and Dust (2013) cited research from Brown and Treviño
(2006) on ethical leadership and Bandura (1997, 1986) on models of workplace behavior. A
study conducted by Brown and Treviño (2006) determined when an organization has ethical
leadership, employees are more aware of the ethical implications of their actions and decisions
and are likely to make ethically appropriate decisions. Also, Bandura (1977, 1986) established
social learning theory which recognized leaders become role models to employees through
demonstrating behaviors and activities accepted as the norm. Therefore, once leaders repeat
17
specific practices, they legitimize behaviors within the organization, either ethical or unethical
(Resick et al., 2013). One of the most common unethical behaviors that leaders unknowingly
legitimize is retaliation (Resick et al., 2013).
Retaliation against whistleblowers. Regulation to prevent retaliation against
whistleblowers is vague in the U.S., and as a result, leaders may unknowingly allow retaliation to
persist within their organizations. MacGregor and Stuebs (2014) noticed 38% of whistleblowers
in corporations have encountered at least one form of retaliation for speaking up over the past
two decades. Rehg, Miceli, Near and Van Scotter (2008) detected those who speak up want to
protect the reputation of the company, but these employees-turned-whistleblowers are in the
minority. In a study of 9,990 employees in the U.S., employee attitude surveys showed most
employees have no expectations of a favorable resolution if they were to report harassment or
ethics violations (Rehg et al., 2008). Additionally, when whistleblowers step forward without the
aid of their team or other advocates, there are no guarantees whistleblowers’ sacrifices will be
rewarded. Regardless of U.S. legislation, the burden of proof falls onto the whistleblower to
prove wrongdoing in ethics and harassment cases (Rehg et al., 2008). As a result, organizations
are not incentivized to make immediate changes (Rehg et al., 2008).
Despite these risks, whistleblowers still believe it is beneficial to speak up about
corruption and harassment. However, Bjorkelo, Einarsen, and Matthiesen (2010) learned leaders
also vet the validity of unethical claims to protect their organizations, which is allowed under the
same legislation that protects whistleblowers. Whistleblowers believe they are using ‘proactive
voices’ to do good while leaders and those who retaliate believe whistleblowers use their
‘prohibitive voices’ to harm the company, thereby causing a rift between the whistleblower,
other employees and senior leadership (Bjorkelo et al., 2010). While the three causes of low
18
employee satisfaction mentioned above are prevalent in existing research, leaders need to also be
aware of how the intersections of these causes may contribute to a decrease in employee
satisfaction.
Intersections of Factors that Impact Employee Satisfaction for Women of Color
A higher risk for fraud, a decrease in performance and productivity and the creation of a
culture of normalized retaliation are at the intersections of the three causes researched in this
study to impact employee satisfaction. Figure 1 provides a visual representation of these
intersections, and the following sections will provide more detail about these relationships.
Figure 1
Intersections and Risks of Factors That Impact Employee Satisfaction for Women of Color

19
Higher risk for fraud. The intersection of a lack of women of color within leadership and
unethical practices may prevent leaders from recognizing an increased risk for fraud within the
organization. A study completed by Drach-Zahavy and Trogan (2013) established that when
workplaces are not inclusive of women of color in leadership, organizational teams see an
increase in instances of fraud, discrimination and workplace retaliation. Also, penalties including
verbal and written threats, denial of access to professional development and physical
intimidation have been reported by those who consider speaking out about organizational fraud
(Drach-Zahavy & Trogan, 2013).
Post and Byron (2015) conducted a study on the lack of women in leadership versus a
firm’s financial performance. The researchers ascertained when corporate leadership lacks
gender diversity, less time is devoted to building ethical business strategies and compliance
activities (Post & Byron, 2015). Also, without diverse perspectives included when making
leadership decisions, there is no opportunity to consider various points of view and a push for
consensus is more likely to occur (Post & Byron, 2015).
Finally, Harjoto et al. (2015) presented that when boards include members with diverse
backgrounds and experiences, they are better able to recognize the needs and interests of
different stakeholder groups. In a study of leadership diversity across 1,489 U.S. firms from 1999
to 2011, the study shared that leadership diversity is positively associated with an increase in
corporate social responsibility and the leaders are better able to build relationships with
stakeholders and reduce operational risks (Harjoto et al., 2015). In instances when fraud is
detected, employees may decide to ignore the fraudulent act or bring the action to the attention of
a leader. If an undesirable reaction results from sharing of a fraudulent activity with leadership,
employees are likely to demonstrate a decrease in performance and productivity.
20
Decrease in performance and productivity. The intersection of unethical practices and
retaliation may have a negative and direct relationship to organizational performance,
productivity, and sustainability. A 2016 study recognized companies ranked in the twenty-fifth
percentile for gender and ethnic diversity were likely to see sales revenue and profits above and
beyond their industry competitors (Wilson Burns & Ulrich, 2016). The same study also
recognized inclusion is also key to offering diverse thought leadership and avoiding costly errors
of judgment. An example of lost revenue that resulted from homogeneity in senior leadership
was the expansion of the American-made Chevrolet Nova in Mexico, where “no va” translates to
“does not go” (Wilson Burns & Ulrich, 2016). Another example provided by the researchers was
the presence of the brown delivery trucks associated with the United Parcel Service brand in
America seen as reminiscent of brown hearses when the company expanded into Spain. Finally,
Gulfstream tried to market a new series of jets to their Chinese customers and did not realize the
name of the new series translated to ‘dimwit’ in Mandarin (Wilson Burns & Ulrich, 2016).
Avery et al. (2012) researched a corporation with over 700 locations and learned if the
workforce and leadership team do not reflect the customer diversity of an organization, employee
productivity decreases. Also, Downey et al. (2015) surveyed over 4,500 employees within the
same organization and concluded when employees report a lack of inclusion practices, such as
recruiting diverse candidates for open positions, there is an overall decrease in satisfaction and
engagement in the workplace. The paradox of leadership and whistleblowers both working to
protect the reputation of the company demonstrates there is a gap in ethical organization culture.
Despite existing sanctions, many organizational leaders circumvent retaliation complaints
(Downey et al., 2015).
21
Culture of normalized retaliation. The intersection of retaliation with a lack of women of
color in leadership may contribute to a culture of normalized retaliation. The Civil Rights Act of
1964 was drafted to discourage discrimination and the Fair Labor Standards Act permits U.S.
whistleblowers to retain their jobs despite speaking out against others in their organization
(Phuttipaitoon & Kleiner, 2003). However, no U.S. legislation protects whistleblowers from
subtle retaliation once a report is closed and filed as complete (Phuttipaitoon & Kleiner, 2003).
Organizations can leverage some ethics legislation to deter whistleblowing from their employees
(Katz et al., 2012). For example, in the U.S., all states recognize at-will employment, and some
organizations have used at-will employment to discourage employees against whistleblowing
(Katz et al., 2012).
To further complicate matters, the laws for whistleblowers also indirectly protect
corporations. According to Svensson and van Genugten (2013), any negative feedback about a
company will always reflect on leadership. Additionally, the researchers say leadership fails
when whistleblowers make reports against other employees or the entire company, as it is the
leaders’ responsibility to guarantee equal treatment for all employees and stakeholders.
Therefore, when a whistleblower with less formal power challenges a company’s practices,
subtle retaliation may ensue (Svensson & van Genugten, 2013).
Finally, in cases where whistleblowers advocate for change that runs counter to
organizational culture norms, change cannot occur (Kezar & Eckel, 2002). The researchers also
mention transforming culture at the micro level is too difficult to affect change across all
organizational units because specific challenges may not exist in every function. The same study
explained whistleblowing is often done as an act of last resort for employees to get leadership to
take notice of unethical behavior. However, a lack of women of color at the leadership level
22
combined with the ramifications of drawing attention to unethical behavior within an
organization may equate to a decrease in employee satisfaction (Kezar & Eckel, 2002).
In summary, this study evaluates Brighton House’s strategy to increase employee
satisfaction for women of color as measured by ENPS by adding more women of color to
leadership succession plans. According to the research in this literature review, when women of
color experience low satisfaction with their organizations, some of the prevalent causes of their
dissatisfaction may include the lack of women of color in leadership, unethical practices and
retaliation in the workplace. The Clark and Estes (2008) framework recommends researchers
identify potential performance gaps within the organization to evaluate the approach of such
organizational strategies. These performance gaps exist in the areas of knowledge, motivation
and organization influences.
Knowledge influences for this study include Brighton House senior leadership’s
declarative knowledge of which tools, skills and abilities will best prepare women of color for
career progression. Next, this study examines how Brighton House’s promotional process may
demonstrate cultural and gender bias, procedural knowledge of the selection criteria for women
of color who seek leadership roles. Finally, this study considers metacognitive knowledge of
how senior leadership becomes aware of their bias of creating obstacles for women of color to
attain promotions. Motivation influences for this study include the cost value of senior leadership
allocating resources to revise current succession plans to become more diverse and the utility
value of diversifying succession plans and the impact on achieving the organizational goal.
Finally, the organization influences for this study include the cultural models of authoritarian
leadership and resistance to change within the cultural settings of restrictive rules, policies and
barriers, as well as vague and changing performance goals.
23
Knowledge, Motivation and Organization Influences
Knowledge Influences
Krawthwohl (2002) identifies four categories of knowledge: factual, conceptual,
procedural and metacognitive. Each category is necessary to explore to understand not only the
‘why’ and the ‘how’, but all of the knowledge dimensions related to a learner’s cognitive process
(Rueda, 2011). The first type of knowledge is factual knowledge, which is a form of declarative
knowledge (Krathwohl, 2002; Rueda, 2011). Factual knowledge is required to solve both simple
and complex problems, and can include terminology, definitions and basic facts (Krathwohl,
2002; Rueda, 2011). The second type of knowledge is conceptual knowledge, which is also a
form of declarative knowledge (Krathwohl, 2002; Rueda, 2011). Where factual knowledge and
conceptual knowledge differ, however, is conceptual knowledge explores the theories, principles
and models associated with established terminology and facts, as well as knowledge of how
basic facts relate to form structures, theories and models (Krathwohl, 2002; Rueda, 2011). The
third type of knowledge is procedural knowledge, which is reflective of understanding the
technique to complete a given task (Krathwohl, 2002; Rueda, 2011). For example, procedural
knowledge encompasses heuristics and structured methods needed to demonstrate a given skill
(Krathwohl, 2002; Rueda, 2011). The fourth and final type of knowledge is metacognitive,
which is ‘thinking about thinking’ when completing a task and allows an individual to become
aware of why he or she behaves in a certain manner in a given situation (Krathwohl, 2002;
Rueda, 2011).
The remaining knowledge sections will detail how each of these forms of knowledge are
pertinent to the challenges Brighton House’s stakeholders face to achieve the established
24
performance goal. In addition to listing each form of knowledge, this study includes potential
approaches to assess goal achievement in each section.
Uncovering skills sets for career progression. The first knowledge influence that
Brighton House leaders need to achieve their performance goal is understanding which tools,
skills and abilities will best prepare diverse employees for career progression. Before an
employee becomes a senior leader, he or she is likely to climb the corporate ladder and take on
roles of increasing responsibility and complexity (Singh et al., 2010). When looking specifically
at women of color, Singh et al. (2010) also shared they are more likely to have limited awareness
of how to move to the next level and a low ability to seek assistance from others able to help
them move up in the organization. Without the knowledge of where to move within an
organization and the inability to seek out advocates to pinpoint their leadership strengths, all
employees are likely to become disengaged and unsatisfied (Singh et al., 2010). Therefore,
employee knowledge of the skills and abilities sought by senior leadership can help to impact
future career progression. This knowledge influence is called declarative knowledge because it
focuses on what is needed to move forward in a career at Brighton House (Krathwohl, 2002).
Bias in the promotional process. The second knowledge influence that Brighton House
leaders share that prevents the organization from reaching its performance goal is the past
behavior of leaders causes diverse employees to believe the leadership promotional process is
culturally biased and inequitable to women. Based on feedback from previous ENPS surveys,
employee focus groups, and exit surveys, female internal candidates believe they are less likely
to receive promotions to fill open senior leadership roles than men who are either internal or
external candidates. According to Carberry and Meyers (2018), the legacy of longstanding
leadership bias toward women of color in the workplace makes the creation of an inclusive
25
culture very difficult. Moreover, organizational programs and initiatives implemented by leaders
to reduce conscious and unconscious bias are not always effective, as women of color are likely
to show some skepticism toward such trust-building efforts (Carberry & Meyers, 2018).
Therefore, it is important not only for leaders to address biases around the concept of what a
leader looks like but biases within the leadership promotional process. This knowledge influence
is also declarative knowledge, with bias as a conceptual influence. Factual knowledge uncovers
skills and abilities to position an individual for career progression, however conceptual
knowledge reveals culturally diverse and gender diverse employees are likely to face bias from
leaders despite their qualifications for leadership roles (Aguinis & Kraiger, 2009).
In a 2017 PwC study about barriers to recruiting and retaining experienced female talent,
corporations attributed ‘lack of adequate skills’ as one of the top reasons why few women
reached the ranks of senior leadership (PwC, 2017). However, the skills needed to exhibit
leadership ability were not detailed in this study. PwC also conducted a Global CEO Survey in
the same year to ask which skills were most important for future leaders. Respondents stated soft
skills such as collaboration (96%), adaptability (96%), creativity (92%) and emotional
intelligence (88%) were necessary for up-and-coming leaders to exhibit (PwC, 2017). Finally,
Tockey and Ignatova (2019) recognized leadership roles requiring higher levels of soft skills and
social interaction grew more than 12% since 1980, yet women still struggle to attain these
positions despite excelling in these areas of social aptitude. Without an awareness of how
employees are selected for leadership opportunities and succession plans, women are left to
create their own assumptions, which can negatively impact their employee satisfaction.
The process of finding a mentor. The third knowledge influence that prevents Brighton
House leaders from reaching their performance goal is diverse employees who seek career
26
progression have limited knowledge of the process to find a mentor. One of the benefits of a
mentoring relationship is to leverage the knowledge of tried-and-true tactics to aid in career
progression. Singh et al. (2010) recommend researching how lower-level employees approach
mentorship, especially when the consequences of a lack of mentoring affects career progression
and pay. Additionally, gender plays a role in an employee’s ability to connect with a mentor
when men comprise the majority of senior leadership roles (Singh et al., 2010). Finally,
employees are most likely to seek out mentors based on their trusted circle, which means social
constraints for women of color are also likely to limit her exposure to ideal mentors (Singh et al.,
2010). For these reasons, Brighton House leaders need to outline both the importance of
mentorship for career development and the steps in the process of finding a mentor. This
knowledge influence is called procedural knowledge because employees need to understand
mentoring needs to be done for future career progression, followed by the steps and processes to
secure a mentor. If women of color can forge beneficial mentoring relationships, they may also
leverage these relationships to improve their career progression.
Awareness of obstacle creation to leadership roles. The final knowledge influence that
prevents Brighton House leaders from reaching their stakeholder goal is that they need to
become aware of their bias to learn why they are creating obstacles for women of color to attain
promotions during their careers at Brighton House. Based on feedback from ENPS surveys and
exit interviews, women of color within Brighton House have noted that they do not feel like they
belong within the organization due to a lack of representation in leadership. Additionally, women
of color have provided feedback that they are uncomfortable speaking up about systems and
processes put in place by leadership within the organization for fear of retaliation. Finally,
women of color have who have left the organization provided feedback that increasing one’s
27
leadership skills and abilities and working with a mentor is not enough to make upward progress
within Brighton House. The impact of this knowledge influence is attributed to senior leadership.
Ng and Sears (2018) noted that CEOs and other leaders can take personal stands on the need for
change, as well as model the behaviors required to affect organizational change. However, if
leaders do not see that their behaviors and bias hinder women of color from attaining
promotions, lower-level management in the organization may also participate in the same
behaviors. For example, Ng and Sears (2018) observed that CEOs who hold unfavorable views
of workforce diversity are not likely to hold middle management accountable for achieving
organizational goals that can be impacted by diversifying the workforce. If leaders agree their
actions cause career progression obstacles for women of color at Brighton House after reflecting
on their paths to the
C-Suite, they can become accountable for their biases and implement organizational change at
the top of the organization (Ng & Sears, 2018). This knowledge influence is called metacognitive
knowledge because it focuses on why an individual behaves in a specific manner within a given
environment and is critical to strategic planning and reflection.
Motivation Influences
The next stage is to review the motivational influences that are essential to understand for
Brighton House’s stakeholders to achieve their goal. The knowledge and skills influences will
help stakeholders understand how and what will need to be done to accomplish the goal;
however, motivation influences listed in this stage will help determine if the stakeholders feel
motivated to complete these goals or not. According to Rueda (2011), over half of the
performance issues do not relate to knowledge issues. A lack of motivation and other factors
could also be underlying factors when studying the achievement of performance goals, so it is
28
best to address these influences individually. Also, researchers do not solve motivation issues
with knowledge solutions (Clark & Estes, 2008). Stakeholders need to ask different questions to
determine if the root of the problem is in motivation issues, knowledge issues, or a combination
of both.
Clark and Estes (2008) provided three indices for motivation: active choice, persistence
and mental effort. Active choice is an individual’s or group’s choice to begin pursing a goal;
persistence is whether or not an individual or group will continue their pursuit of the goal despite
roadblocks and obstacles; and mental effort is the cognitive effort an individual or group is
willing to sustain to complete the goal (Clark & Estes, 2008; Rueda, 2011). Pajares (2006)
expressed it is necessary to study motivation with goal achievement, because individuals need to
believe their efforts make a difference and that they are capable of producing favorable outcomes
to take on more challenges in the future. The following sections will focus on how value, cost
and utility effect the motivation of Brighton House stakeholders to achieve their goal.
The cost of revising the current succession plan. The first motivational influence
related to whether or not Brighton House’s leaders will be successful in achieving their
stakeholder goal is cost value. Cost value stems from the expectancy value theory: stakeholder
confidence that successful outcomes will result from their efforts, as evidenced by prior
experience, culturally based beliefs and input from trusted advisors (Eccles, 2006; Pajares,
2006). As a whole, expectancy value theory allows stakeholders to ask if there will be a
successful outcome if they engage in a given task, and the answer to this question showcases task
value (Clark & Estes, 2008).
For Brighton House leaders, the cost of making leadership positions more inclusive to
women of color requires revisions of their current succession plans. Cost value identifies the
29
negative aspects of engaging in the task of revising the succession plan (Clark & Estes, 2008).
Some of these negative aspects of revising a succession plan may include dedicating time to
locate a consultant who will create a new framework for succession planning, asking leaders to
spend additional time in meetings related to succession plan revision, and having difficult
conversations with previously identified succession candidates that there will be additional
competition in the succession pool for the next career level (McGirt, 2016). These aspects can
cause leaders to feel both performance anxiety and fear of failure to take on these tasks, as well
as fear of success as diverse successors are named, and what a new perspective from culturally
and gender diverse individuals will mean for the organization (McGirt, 2016).
The value of revising the current succession plan. Utility value is how closely a
specific task aligns with stakeholder goals (Pintrich, 2003). Utility value is also directly related
to whether or not the stakeholder is motivated to put in the effort required to reach the goal
(Pintrich, 2003). While Brighton House leaders already have a goal to increase ENPS survey
scores, the strategy they will adopt and tasks they will complete to raise these scores are directly
related to whether or not the stakeholder will persist in the goal (Pintrich, 2003). While Brighton
House leaders may work to increase the ENPS from -11 to +50, they may not persist in their
efforts to make senior leadership more diverse and inclusive if they perceive the cost value to be
high, the utility value to be low, or a combination of both scenarios (Eccles, 2006; Pintrich,
2003).
Leaders’ efforts to boost inclusivity and diversity may take many forms, from asking
lower-level managers to have engaging career conversations with their direct reports to
requesting the talent management division to structure a formal mentoring program for all
employees (Edgley et al., 2016). However, if leaders are not motivated to support efforts to
30
promote more women of color into leadership because changing the status quo involves taking a
career risk, lower-level managers may reconsider efforts to support formal mentoring programs
or engage women of color in mentoring opportunities (Ellevate, 2019).
Van Vianen, Rosenauer, Homan, Horstmeier, and Voelpel (2018) completed a study that
shows employees who have supervisors who consistently show career mentoring behavior have a
favorable opinion of their work environment. Also, Van Vianen et al. (2018) disclosed that
leaders have to provide all employees with both challenging tasks and networking opportunities
to promote a career mentoring work environment. If the cost of engaging in mentoring tasks and
networking tasks becomes excessive for managers it likely they will not see a positive utility
value for career progression, therefore, leaders will lack the support of lower-level management
to execute tasks necessary to achieve the performance goal (Van Vianen et al., 2018).
Organization Influences
In addition to accounting for knowledge and motivation performance gaps, the Clark and
Estes (2008) framework also recommends that researchers identify potential performance gaps
within the organization. Potential organization performance gaps are the result of nonexistent
work processes, a lack of material resources, and unidentified value streams. Clark and Estes
(2008) describe work processes as more than a procedure that instructs employees on completing
a task. Work processes are designed for individuals to collaborate their efforts as a group,
eliminate barriers to complete tasks and achieve a shared goal. Material resources are the
tangible items necessary to aid teams through work processes and value streams help teams
understand the impact of work processes on the overall organization (Clark & Estes, 2008). If
organizations do not have the necessary combination of work processes, material resources and
31
value streams, leaders may not reach performance goals despite efforts to eliminate knowledge
and motivation gaps (Clark & Estes, 2008).
The ability to overcome organizational performance gaps lies in cultural knowledge.
Culture has long been a concept associated with ethnicity or race, which results in a one-
dimensional view of its importance within a corporate environment (Rueda, 2011; Schein, 2004).
However, culture is a set of shared values and beliefs learned by a group over time and how the
group adopts its internal and external processes (Eres & Gati, 2004). Furthermore, culture can be
considered as another form of automated knowledge (Rueda, 2011). Once a culture becomes
automated and ingrained within the behavior of group members, it can become challenging to
explain, demonstrate or decode to outsiders.
Often, individuals will share similar views to join a specific culture. However, Eres and
Gati (2004) found that individuals would also work to adjust their values and beliefs to align
with the culture in which they seek acceptance. Also, homogeneity within group beliefs and
values reinforces the permanence of dynamic cultures (Eres & Gati, 2004; Gallimore &
Goldenberg, 2001; Schein, 2004). Finally, humans are best engaged when they have stability,
consistency and meaning in their roles, recognized through identification with specific groups
(Schein, 2004). As a result, the researcher concludes employees will adopt their behavior to
support norms defined by the current organizational culture.
Clark and Estes (2008) introduced that organizational culture is layered, and it is the most
important work process within an organization because it outlines how groups work together to
achieve a shared goal. Employees rely on cultural models, which are assumptions that groups
share about how to interact and react to various instances in an organization, to engage with
others in an organization (Gallimore & Goldenberg, 2001). Additionally, within the
32
organizational culture, there are multiple dynamic and social contexts called cultural settings that
shape group behavior (Rueda, 2011). Cultural models reside within cultural settings to create a
layered approach to engaging colleagues. When organizations are performing well and achieving
their goals, cultural models and cultural settings are supportive of the overall environment.
However, when employees fail to carry out efficient work processes, or there is a lack of material
resources and a lack of value streams, there may be barriers caused by either the cultural models
or cultural settings (Clark & Estes, 2008; Rueda, 2011). The remaining organization sections will
detail how cultural models and cultural settings are pertinent to the challenges Brighton House’s
stakeholders face to achieve the established performance goal.
Cultural model influences. Cultural models are beliefs, values and attitudes related to
organizational culture (Gallimore & Goldenberg, 2001). These models are often invisible, as
these shared concepts are intangible (Gallimore & Goldenberg, 2001). The same study details
that groups interpret cultural models when they are revealed by their influence on behavior. For
example, Dover, Major, and Kaiser (2016) saw the creation programs to bring in more women of
color have negative consequences because drawing attention to a lack of diversity makes
majority populations believe they will receive unfair treatment. Cultural models are generated
over time and through patterns of similar interactions and responses, thereby becoming
automated assumptions (Clark & Estes, 2008; Gallimore & Goldenberg, 2001). Therefore,
cultural models shape the way organizations are structured, as well as their policies and
procedures (Rueda, 2011).
Authoritarian leadership. Brighton House’s headquarters are in Europe; however, there
are fourteen additional regional offices across the world. There are cultural differences in each
office, which makes adopting some worldwide policies and procedures challenging for the
33
regional offices. To maintain a clear chain of command and directive leadership across all
regional offices, the global CEO is the only authority who can approve organizational systems
and processes, which leaves no room for compromise or modification of procedures or policies
in the regional offices. Dewar, Hirt and Keller (2019) conducted a study on over 7,800 CEOs
representing 70 countries. Their research reported that more than 50% of global CEOs were
unaware that their reporting structure and leadership processes likely contributed to the inability
to achieve business objectives. Additionally, individual and institutional biases of the senior
leadership team were also likely to be driven by the global leader dynamics (Dewar et al., 2019).
Within Brighton House, succession planning is an area where authoritarian leadership is
exercised, as the global CEO and his team can change or reject members presented on succession
plans at any time. Since leadership succession planning is part of the stakeholder goal to increase
employee satisfaction for women of color, this cultural model is important to study.
Resistance to change. As Brighton House neglects to promote women of color in favor
of those who are not minorities, diverse employees believe the organization is resistant to
change. Feedback provided by diverse employees from past engagement surveys and ENPS
results mention that employees perceive Brighton House’s resistance to change in outdated
technology, limited employee benefits and nonexistent career paths, especially paths to the senior
leadership level. Dover et al. (2016) observed diverse employees experienced decreased
employee satisfaction when majority allies show a lack of interest in having discussions to
increase diversity in senior management. As a result, women of color experience more resistance
to change if no effort is made to develop a pipeline of diverse candidates at all levels of the
company (Dover et al., 2016).
34
Various studies have already identified the correlation between gender and cultural
diversity with organizational profitability (Deloitte, 2018; Hunt et al., 2018; RIMS, 2019).
However, unconscious bias can negate the efforts leaders take to create an inclusive
organizational culture (Gallup, 2018). For example, after numerous attempts to improve diversity
at the leadership level, Uber adopted 47 recommendations to eradicate unconscious bias and
build trust, transformation, accountability and ‘tone at the top’ (Cakebread, 2017). These
recommendations included a broader adoption of unconscious bias training and the adoption of a
leadership sponsorship program for women and minorities (Cakebread, 2017). By providing
more access to women of color to gain mentorship from organizational leaders and building
awareness of how individual bias affects the recruitment, hiring, promotions, and succession
planning process, women of color are more likely to have higher levels of employee satisfaction
and exhibit stronger feelings of trust with leadership their organizations (Hoyt & Murphy, 2015).
Cultural setting influences. It can be a challenge to identify the existence of cultural
models that are not always visible; however, cultural settings can provide a more tangible
version of social contexts (Rueda, 2011). These settings provide an answer to ‘who’, ‘what’,
‘where’, ‘when’, ‘why’ or ‘how’ cultural constructs exist (Gallimore & Goldenberg, 2001).
Cultural settings can also help explain why some cultural models are counterintuitive are
appropriate in the context of the organization (Rueda, 2011). For example, specific broker
relationship leader roles within the underwriting segment of Brighton House have always been
held by men who are not diverse, as this background is representative of many brokers of which
Brighton House does business. Finally, cultural settings and cultural models interact on a
dynamic basis to impact group behavior. Edgley et al. (2016) shared that many nations still
portray women as nurturers, while the same nations portray men as decisive and natural leaders.
35
Since women are seen as nurturers first, corporate leaders concerned with increasing revenues
and profit margins exhibit a natural tendency to favor men over women for candidates in high-
potential programs (Edgley et al., 2016).
Restrictive rules, policies and barriers. Brighton House does business in a regulated
industry, which requires employees also to follow specific rules when completing tasks.
However, employee performance has declined under the implementation of new policies across
departments. Past employee survey verbatim vocalizes that new policies create unnecessary
obstacles and increase the amount of time needed to complete routine tasks. When seeking to
hire women of color, imposed barriers such as university affiliation and internal referrals may
restrict the hiring of minorities into apprentice programs and underwriting training programs,
which have produced many individuals currently in leadership roles at Brighton House.
According to a study by Accenture (2018), women of color have two primary needs to
stay within a corporation: a feeling of belonging and satisfaction with their ability to achieve
long-term career goals. The research also reported, on average, 40% of women of color do not
have a mentor to guide them through the rules, policies or barriers within their organizations.
Finally, less than 55% of women of color can identify a sponsor within the organization who can
provide access to career opportunities (Accenture, 2018). If corporate rules and policies create
barriers for advancement for women of color at Brighton House, senior leadership needs to be
aware of how this may also impact employee satisfaction for women of color.
According to the 2018 Women in the Workplace study, 70% of senior leaders are White
men, and less than 4% are women of color (McKinsey, 2018). If women of color seek allies to
advocate for a position in the C-suite, White men are most likely the ones to provide the
necessary insight. However, the experience of White men who have successfully climbed the
36
corporate ladder is different from what White women and other women of color will encounter
(Agovino, 2019). Furthermore, this study notes 60% of White men are uncomfortable mentoring,
working alone or socializing with female colleagues and only 51% of White men say they are
committed to efforts to increase diversity and inclusion in their organization. By documenting
the succession plan selection process, women of color who do not have access to mentors can
understand the requirements to prepare for executive succession plans and increase their
satisfaction with their organization.
Vague and changing performance goals. Brighton House is a pay-for-performance
organization, which leads employees and managers to assess performance goals carefully. Based
on a McKinsey study of corporate performance measurement, when performance is directly
associated with bonus pay, the potential for future promotions, and the opportunity for a space on
a leader’s succession plan, employees become discouraged when yearly performance goals are
not clear (Davies et al., 2017). Women of color have also mentioned performance goals as
another barrier to prevent their upward mobility into leadership roles in past employee surveys,
especially when their performance goals do not appear to align to the overall organizational
goals. Lake et al. (2018) mention that employees who struggle to see their values and beliefs as
compatible with those of their current organization begin to show signs of withdrawal from their
tasks, interacting with their peers and make rapid decisions to resign from their positions.
Finally, Predictive Index (2019) conducted a study of over 3,000 employees at U.S. corporations
across 20 industries to learn top drivers of employee turnover. Out of 50 items on the survey, a
lack of clarity about performance goals and a misunderstanding of what the company expected
from employees both appeared in the top ten engagement drivers for the finance and insurance
industry. If senior leaders put forth performance goals that are not clear, women of color may
37
experience decreased employee satisfaction in pursuit of achieving these goals to advance their
careers.
Table 3 lists the knowledge, motivation, and organization influences described thus far,
along with the potential assessment methods, as well as Brighton House’s organizational
mission, organizational performance goal, and the stakeholder goal.

38
Table 3
Summary of Knowledge, Motivation, and Organization Influences

Organizational Mission

“Diversity is key to maintain our partnerships with our customers and our employees.”

Organizational Performance Goal

By 2025, the organization will increase the
U.S. Employee Net Promoter Score (ENPS) to +50.

Stakeholder Goal

By 2023, U.S. senior leadership will add 20 women of color to their succession plans.

Assumed Knowledge Influence Knowledge Influence Assessment
Brighton House leaders need to
understand which tools, skills and abilities
will best prepare women of color for
career progression.
(Declarative)
Review usage reports of the employee
learning management system (LMS).
Review completion rates of employee
development plans (EDPs). Ask senior
leadership to explain how they interact
with potential succession talent.

Leaders need to understand their behavior
causes employees to believe the
succession planning process is biased to
prevent opportunities for women of color.
(Declarative)
Ask Brighton House leaders to define
‘leadership skills’ and ‘leadership
abilities’ that are necessary for career
progress. Then, ask senior leadership to
discuss the impact of cultural background
and gender when they select talent for
succession plans.

Leaders need to understand women of
color who seek senior leadership roles
have limited knowledge of the selection
criteria due to a lack of access to mentors.
(Procedural)
Interview senior leadership about their
informal and formal processes for
succession planning. Ask leaders how the
succession planning process is
communicated to employees and how this
procedure originated.

Senior leaders need to become aware of
their bias to learn why they are creating
obstacles for women of color to attain
Review exit interview surveys and past
ENPS survey verbatim where women of
color reflect on their experience at
39
leadership roles.
(Metacognitive)
Brighton House. Ask senior leadership
how their potential unconscious biases
may contribute to a lack of women of
color in leadership.

Assumed Motivation Influences Motivational Influence Assessment
Senior leaders already have succession
plans and need to see the value in revising
these plans to incorporate more women of
color.
(Value)

Prepare interviews with senior leaders to
understand their individual beliefs on
diversifying their succession plans.

Senior leadership needs to believe that
changing the homogeneity of the current
executive team to make progress toward
the organizational goal of increasing
employee satisfaction.
(Value)

Survey and interview leaders about their
beliefs around the usefulness of revisions
to the existing succession plan and overall
organizational culture change.

Assumed Organizational Influences Organization Influence Assessment
Authoritarian leadership – the
organization needs to improve diversity
and inclusion at the executive level to
affect change
(Cultural Model 1)
Interview senior leadership to understand
how they lead the North American
organization within the constructs
delivered from the European
headquarters.

Resistance to change – the organization
needs women of color as role models at
the leadership level.
(Cultural Model 2)

Interview senior leadership to understand
their individual beliefs about cultural
change within Brighton House.
Restrictive rules, policies and barriers –
the organization needs to begin hiring and
promoting more women of color into
management roles.
(Cultural Setting 1)
Review exit interview surveys and past
ENPS survey verbatim where women of
color reflected on their experience at
Brighton House, specifically barriers in
the culture and how these barriers impact
their engagement within Brighton House.

Vague and constantly changing
performance goals – the organization
needs to review the parameters under
which candidates are considered for
succession plans.
(Cultural Setting 2)

Review exit interview surveys and past
ENPS survey verbatim where women of
color have reflected on the performance
goals at Brighton House in relation to
their employee satisfaction scores.

40
Conceptual Framework: Knowledge and Motivation and Organizational Context
When performing qualitative research, the researcher’s goal was to understand how
sample groups interpret characteristics within their environment (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). This
point of view is referred to as a construct, and constructs frame how people think, make
decisions and interact under various conditions (Maxwell, 2013; Merriam & Tisdell, 2016).
Constructs are intangible and invisible, which can make it difficult for people to not only
articulate their values and beliefs, it is also difficult for a researcher to uncover the causes for
their values and beliefs in a study (Maxwell, 2013).
Maxwell (2013) defines the conceptual framework as a structure that showcases the
beliefs, values and theories used in a study. The purpose of a conceptual framework is to identify
the current state of an environment, the reasons behind the state of the environment, why it is
important to study the environment and how the environment will be studied (Maxwell, 2013).
According to Merriam and Tisdell (2016), the first steps to building a conceptual framework are
to craft a research problem and build research questions. The process of creating a research
problem requires identifying a knowledge gap between past research and the interest of the
researcher (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). The knowledge gap is the foundation for the study and the
origin of the research questions.
Identifying the research questions. The researcher completed a review of literature, in
which existing research is studied and assessed for relevance, to generate the appropriate
research questions for the conceptual framework (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). Once the researcher
considered previous theories in the available literature, the researcher created research questions
for the conceptual framework (Maxwell, 2013). In this study about Brighton House, there are
four research questions:
41
1. How does knowledge of low employee satisfaction as measured by ENPS for women of
color make leadership feel?
2. Does leadership acknowledge a need for new perspectives from women of color in
leadership?
3. What motivation does leadership have to increase employee satisfaction for women of
color?
4. Which organizational influences can leadership control that align to low employee
satisfaction for women of color?
Based on the literature review and over fifteen years of professional experience by the
researcher, this study features seven knowledge, motivation and organization influences in the
conceptual framework.
The conceptual framework. While these influences are presented independently of each
other in the literature review, senior leadership’s cultural models and settings interact and impact
knowledge and motivation influences. Figure 2 represents a Type 2 conceptual framework that
illustrates the connections between all influences. In the middle of the framework within a
dashed line circle is the metacognitive knowledge influence: senior leadership need to become
aware of their bias that creates obstacles to add women of color to succession plans. From this
centered metacognitive knowledge influence, two separate paths lead to each of the
organization's culture models, each housed within a solid line around the knowledge influence.

42
Figure 2
Conceptual Framework

43
Methodological Framework
This study evaluates Brighton House’s strategy to increase low employee satisfaction for
women of color by adding more women of color into senior leadership succession plans.
Creswell and Poth (2018) suggest that researchers approach research from a worldview
perspective, which are the primary beliefs held by researchers to inform the design of a study.
The goal of the research is to understand the leaders’ perspectives about the lack of women of
color in senior leadership and its potential impact on employee satisfaction. To seek
understanding of Brighton House’s cultural settings and to develop the subjective meaning of
how leaders contribute to the culture through interactions with senior leadership, the researcher
adopted a constructivist worldview and an inductive approach for this case study, as well as a
qualitative inquiry process to collect data (Creswell & Poth, 2018). A constructivist worldview
allowed the researcher to focus on the conditions under which employees interact within an
organization to understand both cultural and historical settings for employees (Creswell & Poth,
2018). Creswell and Poth (2018) recommend that individuals approach research first from a
worldview perspective to inform the design of a study. Therefore, the constructivist worldview
dictates a qualitative study design to conduct theme interpretation and to understand how senior
leaders gain knowledge (Creswell & Poth, 2018).
The number of leaders interviewed for the study was determined by a non-random,
purposeful, maximum variation sampling strategy and the availability of the senior leaders for
the virtual interviews. By using a purposeful sampling strategy, the researcher was able to
request the participation of senior leaders within Brighton House who could answer the research
questions (Maxwell, 2013). Also, by using a maximum variation strategy, the researcher was
able to recruit senior leaders with specific characteristics, such as those who were in a senior
44
leadership role by 2017 (prior to the establishment of the stakeholder goal) and those who had
not completed a 2020 succession plan (Johnson & Christensen, 2014; Merriam & Tisdell, 2016).
The researcher does not have a direct reporting relationship to any of the participants in this
study, and to maintain confidentiality, no demographic information is shared within these
findings. The participating stakeholders and sampling criteria for these interviews are in
Appendix A.
The qualitative inquiry process included face-to-face interviews with the senior leaders to
generate theories about the reasons why their team is not diverse and why the selection process
for successors is not inclusive. All research questions used to guide the interviews follow the
format of descriptive and meaning research questions to align with the qualitative study. The
research questions that guided this evaluation study and addressed knowledge and skills,
motivation and organization influences for the primary stakeholder are:
1. How does knowledge of low employee satisfaction as measured by ENPS for women of
color make leadership feel?
2. Does leadership acknowledge a need for new perspectives from women of color in
leadership?
3. What motivation does leadership have to increase employee satisfaction for women of
color?
4. Which organizational influences can leadership control that align to low employee
satisfaction for women of color?

45
Findings
The findings of this study are the result of virtual interviews from U.S. senior leadership
at Brighton House. Out of 14 members, 12 members of the team were eligible to be interviewed.
For this study, 11 members were interviewed, however, two members asked to rescind their
statements in light of the scrutiny corporations have faced about their diversity and inclusion
practices following the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and the rise of the Black
Lives Matter movement in May 2020. The nine members who remain in the study are Brad,
Bethany, Brian, Barbara, Brent, Bonnie, Benjamin, Brenda, and Brice (pseudonyms). All
members have responsibility for a unique business unit and are responsible for updating a
succession plan for their role each year. Also, each of these senior leaders receive a report of the
overall ENPS employee satisfaction score for Brighton House, as well as the score for their
individual business unit and a dashboard to filter the business unit score by various categories.
These categories include gender, race, pay ranges, office location, tenure and business unit
function. Finally, all verbatim from employees within each business unit is included in the
dashboard and is associated to individual responses. Employee names are not associated to the
responses, yet each employee in scope for the survey has a unique identifier to ensure proper
alignment to the categories. An external vendor is used to remove the unique identifiers and any
other identifying information from the data before providing the results to Brighton House.
The interview data collected consist of nine semi-structured interviews. Each interview
provided context to evaluating knowledge, motivation and organization culture gaps that have
prevented senior leaders from adding more women of color to their succession plans in an effort
to increase employee satisfaction for women of color as measured by ENPS. The following three
sections address the research questions according to the knowledge, motivation and organization
46
(KMO) framework created by Clark and Estes (2008). The knowledge findings include a lack of
priority to evaluate ENPS and the underutilization of succession plans, in addition to how
affinity bias and business unit sizes inhibit corporate advancement. The motivation findings
share why inclusive succession plans lack cost value and why stakeholder goal has low utility
value to senior leaders. Also, the organization findings present how European cultural models
shape the behavior of the U.S. leadership team, as well as why Brighton House leaders follow
cultural settings within the financial services industry to protect their reputation of perceived
stability. The criteria to validate the findings as gaps in this is study are a minimum of five
leaders interviewed, or at least 55%, need to demonstrate a lack of knowledge, motivation or
awareness of the impact of a cultural model or cultural setting.
Declarative, Procedural and Metacognitive Knowledge
Declarative, or factual knowledge, is defined as information one need to be aware of to
solve a specific problem (Krathwohl, 2002; Rueda, 2011). Procedural knowledge is described as
possessing the skills or techniques to do a particular task (Krathwohl, 2002; Rueda, 2011).
Finally, metacognitive knowledge is self-awareness of one’s thought process and an
understanding of when and why to carry out an action (Krathwohl, 2002; Rueda, 2011). The first
and second research questions of this study are positioned to evaluate what knowledge senior
leaders either have or lack about the path to achieve the stakeholder goal. The first research
question seeks to understand if senior leaders are cognizant that low employee satisfaction for
women of color is a problem for Brighton House. The purpose of the second research question is
to determine if senior leaders believe women of color are needed in succession plans and future
leadership roles for Brighton House. The knowledge types and responses to knowledge influence
interview questions are detailed in the following paragraphs.
47
No Priority to Evaluate ENPS nor Succession Plans
In 2017, Brighton House established an organizational goal to increase employee
satisfaction as measured by ENPS from -19 to +50 by 2025. Senior leaders created a stakeholder
goal of adding twenty women of color to their succession plans by 2023 because employee
satisfaction for women of color was the lowest among all demographics at -43. Ahead of the
succession talent meetings in 2020, no women of color appeared on any of the succession plans
for senior leaders in the U.S. offices of Brighton House. All leaders were asked which strategies
their business unit implemented to increase ENPS since 2017, and 67% of leaders admitted no
action was taken. Benjamin shared, “We were involved in a large restructuring last year, so that
took up a lot of our time to sort through.” Brenda added, “Despite my best efforts, working on
our ENPS scores has not been a priority. I know that sounds bad, but we have other pressing
areas to tackle.” When Brenda was asked to go into more detail, she explained, “I have P&L
[profit & loss] responsibility, so my focus will always be on making sure we increase our
profitability each year. It is in my goals to contribute to our profitability.” Brian questioned, “Is
that something that is my responsibility? I look to HR to come back to me with a
recommendation and execution plan.” Of the three leaders who had taken some action to
increase ENPS, one said that their efforts failed almost immediately. Bonnie said:
I worked with my HR business partner to create a series of learning sessions to help
improve career advancement for employees in my function. Career advancement was one
of the areas for improvement from the comments on our ENPS. They could bring their
lunch and the HR business partner would talk about creating a career plan, how to find a
mentor, you know. I guess they didn’t go so well, because only a handful of people
showed up to the first one, and the next one got postponed or cancelled.
48
These sample statements show how ENPS, while positioned as an organizational goal, is
perceived as a lesser priority with limited accountability for senior leaders.
It was evident senior leaders were not presently focused on increasing ENPS in their
business units, and their efforts to meet their stakeholder goal of adding more women of color to
their succession plans also appeared non-existent. All senior leaders are asked to review the
talent listed on their succession plans each year and make updates as necessary. When leaders
were asked where succession talent is sourced, the responses were inconsistent. For example,
Bethany sources her talent by reviewing “only my direct reports”, however, Brad looks at
“cultural fit and potential for influence”. When asked what skills an employee need to
demonstrate to be considered for a senior leader’s succession plan, Brent “looks at those who are
making an impact in the company”, yet Barbara looks for “tenacity and willingness to overcome
obstacles”. Four leaders had either incomplete or blank succession plans, and all leaders had
members on their succession plans who no longer were employed by the organization. Many of
the terms used to identify talent are ambiguous and intangible, which may result in bias during
the succession talent selection process. Also, it is unknown how much importance is placed on
succession plan maintenance due to high levels of outdated information present on all plans. The
next step is to find out what knowledge is shared between senior leaders about formal succession
planning procedures.
ENPS Data and Succession Plans Are Underutilized
The declarative knowledge gaps about efforts needed to improve ENPS and for the
source of succession talent and the skills desired in succession talent are present among senior
leaders. This is a problem because a lack of shared factual knowledge among a group can lead to
challenges in solving organizational problems (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001; Rueda, 2011).
49
Since adding more women of color to senior leaders’ succession plans in an effort to increase
ENPS is the stakeholder goal of this study, it is helpful to evaluate senior leaders’ procedure to
review ENPS and their procedural knowledge of the succession planning process.
First, leaders were asked about their review process of ENPS data from the yearly survey.
There was no uniform process to review ENPS between this group. Eighty-nine percent of senior
leaders do not review the data independently, and 78% of senior leaders were unaware of their
current scores for their business units. Bonnie said, “My chief of staff sits down with me once
the data is available and tells me what we did well and what was not so good.” Brice commented,
“It’s just so much data. It would help if someone could analyze this for us and tell us how to
improve. I just don’t have the time to filter through all this.” Brian made the following statement:
I don’t know why they [Brighton House] do this [ENPS] every year. Nothing changes. As
leaders, we know when we are doing a good job or a bad job, you can see it in the
numbers [financial position]. My HR business partner looks at this, but I don’t. He can
come back to me if there is something in the data that concerns him, but otherwise, I
don’t see how it helps me to grow the business by looking at employee complaints.
The consensus shows there is no uniform process to review ENPS data for senior leaders.
The lack of a procedure to review employee satisfaction data provides insight as to why leaders
also lack declarative knowledge about ways to increase ENPS for their business unit.
Succession planning has a specific process that was created by HR leaders in Brighton
House. There are three steps: identify talent, create a listing of proposed talent in an online
portal, and wait for global leadership to approve the talent listing. If there is talent that global
leadership does not believe to be appropriate for a succession plan, they have the ability to
remove talent from the plan during the approval process. During Q2, senior leaders are asked to
50
revisit their succession plans, and add or remove talent as necessary. The first step of the process
is to identify talent, and the senior leaders were asked about their interpretation of this step in the
procedure. All leaders who were interviewed involve others in the process of identifying talent
for their succession plans. For example, Bethany asks her HR business partner “who stands out
as a strong contender for my role in the future”. Barbara likes to “confer with other senior leaders
to see if they agree with her choices”. Brad chats with the CEO “to make sure I’m not off-track
with my picks”. Brent will “connect with the potentials to see if they have aspirations to take my
job someday.” Additionally, all leaders were familiar with the formal process to add talent to
their plans to during Q2 for approval by global leadership.
Senior leaders were also asked what role does gender and race play in their identification
of succession talent each year. All leaders responded that while they do consider women and
people of color for their succession plan, adding this diversity does not guarantee future diversity
in senior leadership. Brice explained the following caveat to the succession planning process:
Let’s say I leave and go work for [competitor]…my succession plan does not
immediately get activated when I leave. If [the CEO] does not like who I believe is best
suited to take over for me, they can put someone else in my office or go external. It
happens all the time. Someone leaves or retires, and a bigger name with more industry
connections is offered the chance to take on a top role at Brighton House. That’s why I
never tell my succession talent who they are. It just doesn’t matter after you’re out.
In additional interviews, other senior leaders elaborate on Brice’s sentiments about why the
procedures taken for succession plans do not help to advance more women of color. Brenda
provides the following commentary:
51
In the twelve years I’ve been in senior leadership, I can count on my hand the number of
times a succession plan was actually activated. And, it’s not necessarily because we
wanted fresh talent. It’s because no one leaves this damn company! You’ve worked to get
here your whole career, and the board doesn’t make you retire by a certain time. As long
as you can produce and keep the company moving in the right direction, you have a seat
at the table. So, it’s not to say that more women and Black people and Latinos and all
other ethnicities need to be on more succession plans. I’m just saying that short of firing
the people who are already on the senior team, it will be a long time before more
diversity is going to be seen in the boardroom.
Brenda is correct, as the average tenure of a senior leader in the organization is 12 years.
For comparison, middle managers remain in the same role for an average of five years. While
leadership has procedural knowledge of the succession planning process, these leaders are not
sharing the process with succession talent. A lack of transparency and mentorship about
succession planning is a procedural knowledge gap that also prevents women who seek senior
leadership roles from understanding the criteria necessary to be selected during the succession
planning process. Simply adding women of color to succession plans will not improve their
employee satisfaction if there is no space for them, or anyone else, to take a role at the top of the
organization due to extensive leader tenures. These responses help address the second research
question, as leaders did not acknowledge a need for women of color in leadership.
All senior leaders interviewed also expressed that HR is responsible for developing future
talent for leadership roles. The HR leadership team offers a yearly training program for
individuals in roles that show high potential for future leadership. However, there is a procedural
knowledge gap as the succession planning process is not discussed during the training, and less
52
than 2% of the individuals who have been identified as having high potential for leadership roles
over the past three years were women of color. Senior leaders still have a role to play in the
selection of talent for potential leaders of Brighton House, which makes it critical to discuss their
path to the C-Suite and reflect on why they were essential to the progress of the organization.
Affinity Bias and Business Unit Sizes Inhibit Corporate Advancement
Metacognitive knowledge is also defined as self-awareness and it can provide evidence as
to why one acts in a specific manner given their environment (Krathwohl, 2001; Rueda, 2011).
In the interviews, senior leaders were asked to reflect on their experiences to their current roles,
as well as their feelings about low employee satisfaction for women of color and what support
they need to improve employee satisfaction for women of color. Of the nine leaders interviewed,
three were external hires outside of the company. Out of the six remaining leaders, only one was
aware she was hired based on a succession plan. Bethany recalled:
[The CEO at the time] called me in to discuss a project that I was working on. I thought it
was odd that he invited me to a meeting without my manager, but I went ahead anyway.
My manager left the company, effective immediately, and I was asked to step into her
role in the interim because I was listed on her succession plan as one of four
replacements. [The CEO] liked the work I was doing and called me in first to offer me
the opportunity, and I worked harder than I ever had for three months before they gave
me the role permanently.
The other leaders who were promoted into senior leadership recalled their “mentors”,
“sponsors”, and “visibility within the company” as catalysts for their upward movement.
Additionally, when asked what perspectives they added to the senior leadership team that did not
53
exist prior to their appointment, none of the leaders could provide anything specific that
differentiated them from the group. Brad explains what was shared by each of the leaders:
When you move into the top of the house, you need to be someone who can make critical
decisions and stand by them and your team. Everyone can’t do that. It takes someone
who is methodical, who is able to see the challenge from 35,000 feet, and not willing to
lose. We’re all like that. I believe we’ve all shown these traits in our previous roles,
which makes us good for leadership.
When Brad was asked to whether or not he believes it is harmful for all senior leaders to
demonstrate the same traits as it could lead to groupthink, he added:
In our industry, there’s a lot of money at stake. If you’re leading the underwriting unit,
and you gamble on covering the wrong customer and their losses affect our profits, we
take a hit. We don’t want to take too many of these losses, especially now dealing with
COVID and heading into the hurricane season. We need to be united, and if that means
we all think along the same lines, then so be it.
Since affinity bias and the concept of groupthink do not present a challenge to the senior
leaders during their reflection, they were asked to share how they feel about low employee
satisfaction for women of color within their individual business units. After being provided with
the score for women of color within their span of control, the responses were varied. Brent said,
“It’s definitely bad, and shame on me for not knowing how bad it was.” Brenda commented, “I
wish there was more I could do to help”. Barbara mentioned, “Traditionally, women of color
have not done well in roles within my department. They transfer out or leave the company
altogether, so it is not a surprise their satisfaction scores are low”. Finally, when asked what
support they needed to increase employee satisfaction for women of color, only one leader
54
referenced adding women of color to succession plans. However, he referenced the likelihood of
making this happen was very low. Benjamin clarifies:
The problem with Brighton House is that we have one super large department, a
couple of medium sized ones and the rest are pretty small. And, most of these
departments aren’t diverse…you have one Black guy in a leadership role, two Asian
women in another group, and the rest are all in ADR [the largest department]. That
means, if we as leaders want to add more women of color to our succession plans, we
will have to look outside the company and hire them for some of our extended leadership
team. But those roles are already occupied. ADR has all the diverse talent, but they don’t
have the specialized knowledge needed to run this business function. And the other
leaders know it, too. They [women of color] will end up fighting to get on Bonnie’s
succession plan, but only one of them would be able replace her someday.
The findings detail metacognitive knowledge gaps, and bias that senior leaders perpetuate
in creating obstacles for women of color to appear on succession plans. Women of color at
Brighton House do not have the same mentor relationships or sponsorship within the
organization as senior leaders had upon reflection of their career path. This lack of support
prevents women of color from receiving insight on what they can do to position themselves for
future opportunities. Additionally, senior leadership intentionally remains homogeneous, from
ethnicity to professional accomplishments to risk tolerance. This sameness may also contribute
to groupthink, and effectively restricts women of color from being considered for future roles.
Finally, because there are so few women of color in each department, except for ADR, none of
the leaders have planned behavior changes to be more inclusive of this demographic. ADR has
over 90% of the women of color in the organization, however, they primarily work in non-
55
exempt positions and junior-level positions. The few women in ADR who are 1-2 promotions
away from becoming a vice-president will have to compete against each other for the same
senior leadership role. Other business unit leaders restrict their succession talent searches to
those with specialized skills within the same unit. These barriers also jeopardize Brighton
House’s ability to reach the organizational goal of improving ENPS to +50 by 2025. If these
knowledge gaps can be resolved to mitigate bias, an evaluation of senior leadership’s motivation
to improve employee satisfaction for women of color by adding women of color to their
succession plans need to also be completed.
Expectancy Cost and Utility Values in Motivation
Rueda (2011) defines expectancy value as the motivation an individual or group
associates to completing a specific task. In this study, two types of expectancy value were
studied: cost value and utility value. Cost value indicates various aspects of the completion of a
task, such as time, effort, money and other resources (Rueda, 2011). Utility value indicates the
practicality of task completion (Rueda, 2011). The third research question in this study is
positioned to evaluate what motivation senior leaders have to increase employee satisfaction for
women of color. The motivation types and responses to motivation influence interview questions
are detailed in the following paragraphs.
Inclusive Succession Plans Lack Cost Value for Senior Leaders
Senior leader responses to procedural and metacognitive knowledge questions about
succession planning at Brighton House provide insight about a lack of motivation to update their
succession plans. When asked if adding women of color to succession plans was a consideration
for adding new perspectives within leadership, none of the leaders interviewed said this was part
of their discussions. Brice shared:
56
Our responsibility as leaders is to hire the best person for the job. Hands down. I could
care less if they are male, female, black, white, purple, on my succession plan or not…all
I care about is that they deliver. I’m open to bringing in a Black woman or an Asian
women or a Latin American to join our team, but I just haven’t met one I would
recommend at this point. The succession plan is what it is…those are the people who are
ready to go now.
Brice and the other eight leaders were also presented with their ENPS results for their
business unit, as well as their current succession plan during the interview. The ENPS score for
women of color within their unit was highlighted and juxtaposed with the lack of diversity on
their succession plan despite their stakeholder goal and the overall organizational goal for 2025.
When the leaders were asked about the 2018 stakeholder goal they created to satisfy the 2025
organizational goal to increase employee satisfaction, there was a consensus that it would take
effort to keep women of color satisfied at Brighton House. Therefore, making modifications to
their succession plans were considered moot. Brenda recalled, “I came in with two really talented
ladies, both Black, and we all had gripes about working in this mostly-male company. But, the
difference was I stuck it out and tried to make a way. They both left after a few years and went to
other firms and they are still struggling to get ahead.” Barbara mentioned,
About 15 years ago, I led a team that had a lot of diversity back then. Mostly women, and
one was Black, two were Asian. I did my best to make sure everyone had a chance to lead
projects, but [the Black woman] complained to HR about a lack of opportunity for career
advancement. When I asked about her career goals in our 1:1s, she never had a clear
understanding of what she wanted to do, and she left the company not long after.

57
Brent gave another perspective:
If we are going to get serious about putting women of color into leadership sometime in
my time here, we need to start calling each other out on these succession plans. Yeah, we
have them, but no one talks about them. They are kinda morbid, you know, one of those
‘if you get hit by a bus deals’, but there’s no point in putting women of color on
[succession plans] if we can’t keep them [at Brighton House].
The expectancy cost value of adding more women of color to succession plans is too low
for senior leaders at Brighton House. This motivation gap exists because leaders believe women
of color are difficult to retain within the organization. Since women of color are not regarded as
critical sources for new perspectives within Brighton House, there is no impetus for senior
leaders to be intentional about including women of color in discussions about future leadership.
Stakeholder Goal Has Low Utility Value for Senior Leaders
The responses from senior leaders about the cost value of succession planning do not
encourage utility value to complete the stakeholder goal to increase ENPS by adding more
women of color to their succession plans. When asked about their plans to move forward with
their stakeholder goal over the next year, all of the leaders who were interviewed did not express
any increase in motivation to change their behavior.
This lack of motivation was rooted in low utility value of not only the succession plan,
but the low utility value of the stakeholder goal. Fifty-five percent of the leaders noted they have
too many performance goals and they have to focus on what is most important each year.
Bethany called it “foolish to chase perfection when it comes to yearly performance” and Brian
wished he could “make more of an effort in diversity”, yet he believes “the current senior team
58
works well together, so why ruin a good thing?” Benjamin provided insight as to why senior
leaders remain unmotivated to make progress on their stakeholder goal:
I hate to say it, but leaders are the worst when it comes to change. Every year, we sit
through countless appeals from project leads and the innovation team and HR
encouraging us to spend extra money and resources to change [Brighton House]. The fact
of the matter is, [senior leaders] don’t really get activated to make change happen until
we see it as a problem. There are so many things we could do, but we are here to focus on
what we need to do to keep this ship afloat and maintain our position in the industry.
The findings suggest expectancy value gaps for senior leaders to make progress on
improving employee satisfaction for women of color based on their views of the utility of
succession plans and their concerns about investing resources in unsatisfied women of color who
may not stay at Brighton House for an extended period of time due to their employee satisfaction
feedback. A proliferation of performance goals was cited as a reason why many leaders do not
prioritize the stakeholder goal, and upon review of the Brighton House senior leadership
performance goals for 2020, increasing women of color in succession plans does not explicitly
appear in their goals. Additionally, there is no requirement to increase ENPS in senior leaders’
2020 performance goals. In the next section, the findings of this study will explore how the
organizational culture shaped by the global offices of Brighton House contributes to both
knowledge and motivation gaps to achieve the stakeholder goal for U.S. senior leadership.
Organization Cultural Models and Cultural Settings
Rueda (2011) distinguished cultural models from cultural settings as the difference
between shared behaviors within an environment versus visible actions that are carried out
within the same environment, respectively. The final research question of this study evaluates
59
which organizational influences controlled by senior leadership align to employee satisfaction
for women of color. It is important to know which cultural models and cultural settings that
senior leaders control within Brighton House before creating an effective organizational change
strategy. The cultural models and cultural settings and responses to the organization influence
interview questions are detailed in the following paragraphs.
European Cultural Models Shape U.S. Leadership Behaviors
Brighton House has global headquarters in Europe, and the U.S. headquarters is regarded
as one of many regional offices. Despite the unique sets of laws, regulations and guidelines each
regional office needs to adhere to conduct business across the world, the executive team at the
global headquarters insists on final approval of any activities, investments and changes to the
organizational structure. This oversight extends to succession planning, as the global executive
team can veto talent from being listed on a leader’s succession plan at any time. Each U.S. senior
leader was asked if they had ever recommended succession talent that was not accepted by
global executives, and none of the leaders had that experience. Brent reflected, “We know
exactly who they are looking for, so it’s a no-brainer for me to add people to my succession plan
that make sense.” Brenda said, “Having exposure to [the global CEO] helps. If he doesn’t know
your name, you’re not getting on the plan.” Benjamin added, “That’s how it worked at
[competitor] when I was a VP there. You send up your recommendations and wait for approval
from the global board. I don’t see a problem with it, you just come to expect it’s the way our
industry does [succession planning].”
Since senior leaders had not yet had any members on their succession plans removed,
they were also asked about their intentions to add women of color to their plans per the
stakeholder goal. Again, each senior leader provided similar responses about the inability to find
60
women of color ready for senior leadership. Brice, Bethany, Bonnie and Brian each repeated the
phrase, “We’re just not there yet.” When asked to go into greater detail about the meaning of that
phrase, Brice gave the following explanation:
I’ll say this…we need more men and women of color in the U.S. We start them off at
entry-level positions and they have access to the same resources and opportunities I did
when I was coming up. But, for whatever reason, we don’t do a good job of getting them
[into management roles]. That’s where the separation happens. If you can’t manage a
team and you don’t have [profit and loss responsibility], how does [the global CEO]
know you can lead this company? It’s a shame there aren’t more Blacks and Hispanics up
the ladder at the head office… maybe if there were, [people of color] would get more
support in the U.S.
Based on the responses from senior leaders, they are resistant to change how they structure their
succession plans, as their plans have been accepted without question from global leadership in
the past. Additionally, senior leaders show resistance to add women of color to their succession
plans because women do not appear in leadership at the global headquarters. Finally, no leaders
have taken responsibility for the limited career progression for diverse employees or worked to
change the perception that women of color lack leadership abilities in the U.S. because there are
no women of color in global leadership at Brighton House. These cultural model gaps raise
concerns as to why the goal was created to increase employee satisfaction for women of color if
the behavior of senior leaders is not aligned to the end result. The answer lies in the evaluation of
existing cultural settings and the discovery of a new cultural settings gap.

61
Brighton House Follows Industry Cultural Settings to Maintain Stability
Throughout the interviews, senior leaders have expressed they do not review ENPS on a
regular basis and they were unaware of the ENPS for women of color in their business units.
Also, senior leaders adopt their own processes to select succession talent, they are unmotivated
to make their succession plans more inclusive of women of color because the plans are rarely
activated, and women of color are too dissatisfied to remain at Brighton House. Finally, senior
leaders only submit talent that is similar to themselves and the individuals represented on the
global leadership team for approval on their succession plans. These actions do not show
progress toward the stakeholder goal of adding more women of color to senior leaders’
succession plans to meet the organizational goal of increasing ENPS to +50 by 2025. Therefore,
the U.S. senior leadership team was asked why they agreed to the stakeholder goal.
This question was hard to answer for a number of the leaders, as four responded “I don’t
know.” Brenda admitted, “It really puts things into perspective when you think about how we got
here with low employee satisfaction, and our haste to make recommendations to fix it. And, it
speaks to how we set goals and objectives.” Brad also mentioned goal setting in his response,
“Goals are meant to be tweaked. It happens all the time.” Brice said,
To be frank, I didn’t see our charge to [the stakeholder goal] going anywhere. We throw
out all these goals and initiatives because it looks good to [the global CEO]. Are we held
accountable for all of them? No! Because they are just going to change six months, three
months, a month from now. If there’s no financial target attached to the goal, we know to
assume it is a nice-to-have.
Since senior leaders downplayed the importance of the stakeholder goal because it was not
attached to a financial target, they have demonstrated a lack of accountability for organizational
62
change goals. Additionally, the cultural model findings also reflect that senior leaders only select
talent they believe will be approved by global leadership which also inhibits progress toward the
stakeholder goal.
A new cultural setting emerged when leaders spoke about the hiring process within
Brighton House. Eighty-nine percent of leaders mentioned the recruiters do not offer diverse
candidate slates when there are open middle management or director positions. Barbara was the
only leader who could identify a woman of color in the company they could recommend for a
future leadership opportunity but was still hesitant to place this diverse woman on her succession
plan. Barbara offered the following explanation:
It’s not the women or the people of color who need to improve their leadership skills. It’s
our environment and our industry and the inherent barriers we’ve put up that are denying
them the leadership opportunities when new positions are available. We care more about
who has proven themselves already in leading the business than we do about giving
someone new a chance. This is not the type of business to try things out. We need people
who are reliable and trusted to lead.
Benjamin supported Barbara’s statement about the industry issues prohibiting advancement for
women of color:
Even if we had a whole suite of offerings to hire more diverse women ready for
succession plans, we would probably still fail at getting them on because I can’t think of
any who are well-known in the industry.
Brice also called out industry constraints that cause difficulty in adding more women of color to
his succession plan:
63
When I hire someone for my team, in the back of my mind, I think that I am hiring to
replace myself. This has to be someone with a lot of industry connections, a respected
name in the business and someone with an outstanding track record of leadership. We are
in the business of reducing risk for our customers, and we need to right people in
leadership to signal stability to our customers.
The theme of industry stability was a new viewpoint that was not considered in the initial
organization influences. The concept that Brighton House and its competitors believe stability is
a result of the membership of their senior leadership teams also provides context to knowledge,
motivation and organizational gaps. First, if women of color are not prevalent in top careers in
the financial services industry, the study findings show few leaders will have knowledge of their
capabilities and are less likely to take a chance on hiring them into leadership roles. Instead,
leaders will hire more White men who comprise 72% of leadership roles in U.S. corporations
(Jones, 2017). Next, if women of color are not prominent within the financial services industry,
the study findings show there is little motivation to seek or consider their perspectives in
leadership. Finally, since the need for perceived company stability is top of mind when
organizational leaders select future leaders, the study findings show that neither gender nor race
are top considerations for identifying talent.
In summary, Brighton House senior leaders provided evidence of knowledge, motivation
and organization gaps that explain why they have not made progress on their stakeholder goal to
add more women of color to their succession plans in an effort to meet the organizational goal of
increasing employee satisfaction as measured by ENPS. While the stakeholder goal may not be
tied to financial results nor enforced by global leadership, senior leaders are still accountable to
the stability of the organization. Since employee satisfaction for women of color increases and
64
employee turnover decreases when organizations add women of color into leadership roles, the
current leadership team needs to focus more attention on the stakeholder goal as another strategy
to maintain company stability (Ali et al., 2015). The final section of this dissertation provides
recommendations, implementation tactics and evaluation measures for prioritized knowledge,
motivation, and organization influences in this study.
Recommendations for Practice to Address KMO Influences
The assumed influences that were validated in the Findings section are categorized as
knowledge, motivation, and organization recommendations in this section per the Clark and
Estes (2008) gap analysis model. In addition to categorizing the recommendations, each
influence was reviewed to determine its prioritization in achieving the stakeholder goal.
Prioritized influences were considered within a blended learning program for senior leadership in
the structure of the New World Kirkpatrick (2016) model of evaluation. The planning phase of
this program are listed in reverse order of the New World Kirkpatrick (2016) model to first
identify intended results of the learning (Level 4), followed by the behaviors senior leaders will
need to display and the ancillary stakeholders who can encourage this behavior (Level 3), the
knowledge, confidence and commitment each senior leader needs to gain from the program
(Level 2), and the interval evaluation process to measure key learnings (Level 1).
Knowledge Recommendations
This evaluation study identified three types of knowledge influences: declarative,
procedural and metacognitive. Rueda (2011) defines these knowledge influences as follows:
declarative knowledge are facts needed to approach a goal; procedural knowledge allows one to
accomplish a specific goal; and metacognitive knowledge is self-awareness within the
accomplishment of a goal. Table 4 details where executives experience a lack of knowledge and
65
are likely to face challenges to achieve the established stakeholder goal. In addition to listing
each knowledge influence, this section validates two knowledge gaps and two assumed areas
with a high probability to be knowledge gaps. Each of the knowledge gaps are a priority to
resolve and are accompanied with both the knowledge principle and the recommendations to
overcome the gap at the end of the rows.
Table 4
Summary of Knowledge Influences and Recommendations
Assumed
Knowledge
Influence
Validated as
a Gap?
Yes, High
Probability
or No
(Y, HP, N)
Principle and
Citation
Context-Specific
Recommendation
Brighton House
leaders need to
understand which
tools, skills and
abilities will best
prepare women of
color for career
progression.
(Declarative)
Y Social Cognitive
Theory

Learning and
motivation are
enhanced when
learners have
positive
expectancies
for success
(Pajares, 2006)

Provide education to senior
leaders about policies and
processes that similar
Fortune 500 companies
incorporate to build a
pipeline of women of color
for leadership roles that have
also resulted in an increase in
employee satisfaction for
women of color

Leaders need to
understand their
behavior causes
employees to believe
the succession
planning process is
biased to prevent
opportunities for
women of color.
Y Operant
Conditioning

Behavior that is
reinforced is
strengthened
(Daly, 2009)
Require unconscious bias
training for executives to
help leaders understand the
impact of their behaviors
during the succession
planning process and to
uncover any process bias
embedded in succession
planning
66
(Declarative)
Leaders need to
understand women of
color who seek senior
leadership roles have
limited knowledge of
the selection criteria
due to a lack of access
to mentors.
(Procedural)
Y Information
Processing
System Theory

Information
learned
meaningfully and
connected with
prior knowledge
is stored more
quickly and
remembered more
accurately
because it is
elaborated with
prior learning
(Schraw &
McCrudden,
2006)

Request that executives
document the information for
succession plan consideration
on the organization’s
intranet.

Use this information to create
a succession planning
process job aid for managers
to utilize during 1:1
conversations with direct
reports, especially women of
color who seek executive
leadership roles
Senior leaders need to
become aware of their
bias to learn why they
are creating obstacles
for women of color to
attain leadership roles.
(Metacognitive)
Y Metacognition

Learning and
motivation are
enhanced when
learners set goals,
monitor their
performance and
evaluate the
progress toward
achieving their
goals (Ambrose et
al., 2010; Mayer,
2011)

Require each senior leader to
participate in quarterly
meetings with Diversity &
Inclusion executive to review
information about their
individual business unit
regarding the following for
women of color: retention,
voluntary/involuntary
terminations, recruitment,
hiring, promotions,
succession planning)

Establishing Leadership’s Knowledge of Leadership Skills Needed for Women of Color
The findings of this study indicated 100% of leaders interviewed were unclear on the
tools, skills and abilities necessary to prepare women of color for career progression. A
recommendation stemming from social cognitive theory was selected to close this declarative
67
knowledge gap. Pajares (2006) verified learning and motivation are enhanced when learners
have positive expectancies for success. Additionally, social cognitive theory assumes the
environment of a given stakeholder influences their behavior, thoughts and beliefs (Denler et al.,
2006). Therefore, it is important to provide education to senior leaders about policies and
processes adopted by similar Fortune 500 companies to build a pipeline of women of color for
executive roles. These measures need to have also resulted in an increase in employee
satisfaction for women of color to help Brighton House senior leadership meet their stakeholder
goal. This declarative knowledge influence was more important to address than bias in the
succession planning process because leadership’s lack of clarity about qualifications that women
of color need to exhibit for career progression indicates a larger problem within Brighton House.
Social cognitive theory is necessary to close this knowledge gap with leadership in a
timely fashion. Because the stakeholder goal is to be attained by 2025, Shute (2008)
recommended that leaders receive feedback about their progress that is private, specific, timely,
and linked to the use of strategies to improve performance. For example, if there are senior
leaders who have difficulty applying diversity and inclusion tactics of similar Fortune 500
companies to their specific organizations within Brighton House, the CEO or a small diversity
council needs to address the leaders individually with specific examples of how they can
improve their efforts. In these instances, the CEO or diversity council can provide models that
are credible, similar, and enthusiastic, and whose behavior has functional value to reinforce
learning (Denler et al., 2009). An example of this model could be an accelerated leadership
program that spans one fiscal quarter to provide women of color an opportunity to build senior
leadership skills.
68
Creating Transparency of Succession Plan Selection Criteria for Women of Color
Another finding of this study is that 89% of senior leaders interviewed have not
documented the criteria for selection of talent on succession plans and more than 66% of these
leaders purposely kept this information secret unless they had a mentoring relationship with the
talent on their succession plan. The recommendation to close this procedural knowledge gap is
related to information processing system theory. Information learned meaningfully and
connected with prior knowledge is stored more quickly and remembered more accurately
because it is elaborated with prior learning (Schraw & McCrudden, 2006). It is recommended
that senior leaders become more transparent and document the information for succession plan
consideration on the organization’s intranet. Also, the documented information needs to be used
to create a succession planning process job aid for managers to utilize during one-on-one
conversations with employees, especially women of color who seek senior leadership roles.
Information processing theory recommends that learners identify prior knowledge about
what they know and what they do not know about a topic before a learning task (Mayer, 2011).
Because the succession planning process is not documented for many leaders, it is important to
understand what leaders know about succession planning and to check for any disparate
information between their recollections. Once the process is reviewed, approved by leadership
and reinstated, leaders will need to master the new process by acquiring the ability to recognize
succession talent that includes women of color, integrating this ability into their willingness to
mentor or sponsor women of color for leadership opportunities, and understand when to add
women of color to their succession plan to demonstrate what they have learned (Schraw &
McCrudden, 2006). Documenting the new process and having the ability to refer back to the
69
steps will help organize the new information for Brighton House leaders to follow, as well as for
women of color to build a cognitive framework to better accept the parameters of attaining a
leadership role within this corporate environment.
Removing Bias and Organizational Obstacles to Promote Women of Color into Leadership
The last finding of this study is that more than 55% of the leaders admitted unconscious
bias likely contributes to the creation of obstacles for women of color to attain senior leadership
roles. A metacognition recommendation was identified to close this knowledge gap. Learning
and motivation are enhanced when learners set goals, monitor their performance and evaluate the
progress toward achieving their goals (Ambrose et al., 2010; Mayer, 2011). Prior to these
interviews, senior leaders did not consider how their attitudes toward succession planning may
have impeded the identification of women of color who have potential as future leaders. To solve
this knowledge gap, each senior leader needs to participate in quarterly meetings with their
diversity and inclusion executives to review information about their individual business unit
regarding retention, voluntary and involuntary terminations, recruitment, hiring, promotions, and
succession planning for women of color.
Clark and Estes (2008) defined metacognition as the type of knowledge that allows one to
know when and why they need to take a specific action. Gaining an awareness of implicit bias
helps leaders understand why they have made past decisions not to sponsor women of color for
leadership opportunities. However, leaders need to also become aware of when these decisions
have occurred in their decision making to identify patterns and change their behaviors. For
example, if the diversity and inclusion executives notice an increase in promotions of White men
within the organization following a major customer renewal period, and White men are assigned
70
to these accounts on the sales team, it may be helpful to provide more sales opportunities to
women of color on the team. If women of color are not part of the sales team, leadership needs
showcase self-awareness that this is an issue that will hinder progress toward adding more
women of color onto succession plans (Mayer, 2011). Having regular conversations with
diversity & inclusion executives or diversity councils will help leaders set business unit goals
and monitor their progress.
Motivation Recommendations
Kirkpatrick and Kirkpatrick (2016) incorporate a variety of required drivers to motivate
critical behaviors in the primary stakeholders. This study identified the cost and utility
expectancy values influence as a priority to address within the learning program. Rueda (2011)
defines these motivation influences as follows: cost value is the perceived cost of pursuing a goal
in time, resources or other dimensions; and utility value is the usefulness of pursing a goal. Table
5 exhibits motivation gaps for senior leaders to meet their stakeholder goal of adding more
women of color to senior leadership succession plans. Without motivation to achieve the
stakeholder goal, senior leaders will ultimately struggle to achieve the organizational goal of
increasing employee satisfaction. There are two motivation influences, both of which are a
priority to address, and these influences are followed by the appropriate motivation principle and
recommendations to eliminate the gap.

71
Table 5
Summary of Motivation Influences and Recommendations
Assumed
Motivation
Influence
Validated as
a Gap?
Yes, High
Probability
or No
(Y, HP, N)
Principle and
Citation
Context-Specific
Recommendation
Senior leaders already
have succession plans
and need to see the
value in revising these
plans to incorporate
more women of color.
(Value)
Y Expectancy Value

Include rationales
about the
importance and
utility value of the
task (Pintrich,
2003)

Survey and interview
executives to understand
their individual beliefs on
diversifying succession plans
and mentoring women of
color, and then discuss the
aggregate responses with the
entire leadership team while
providing case studies for
discussion about
organizations that saw a
positive economic impact
after taking measures to add
women of color into
leadership
Senior leadership
needs to believe that
changing the
homogeneity of the
current executive team
to make progress
toward the
organizational goal of
increasing employee
satisfaction.
(Value)
Y Expectancy Value

Materials and
activities need to
be relevant and
useful to the
learners,
connected to their
interests, and
based on real-
world tasks
(Pintrich, 2003)
Survey and interview
executives about their beliefs
around the usefulness of a
company-wide mentoring
program, revisions to the
existing succession plan and
overall organizational culture
change, and then provide
case studies for discussion
about organizations that saw
a positive economic impact
after taking measures to add
women of color into
leadership

72
Understanding Leadership’s Values to Motivate a Shift from Intention to Action
The findings of this study indicated more than 66% of leaders interviewed were not
certain that increasing cultural and gender diversity within senior leadership would make
progress toward the organizational goal of increasing employee satisfaction. Expectancy value
theory was utilized to formulate a recommendation to close this motivation value gap. Pintrich
(2003) claimed materials and activities need to be relevant and useful to the learners, connected
to their interests, and based on real-world tasks. Also, if these leaders do not associate any
personal benefit with increasing employee satisfaction, the utility value of adding women of
color to their succession plan is low and, according to Eccles (2006) research, these executives
are unlikely to persist in their efforts. Therefore, more work needs to be done to survey and
interview leaders about their beliefs around the usefulness of a company-wide mentoring
program, revisions to the existing succession plan, and overall organizational culture change.
Once this data has been collected and analyzed, senior leaders need to be provided with case
studies for discussion about organizations that saw a positive economic impact after taking
measures to add women of color into leadership. This expectancy value influence was more
important to address than the value of revising an existing succession plan because the failure of
most senior leaders to understand the relationship between a lack of culturally diverse
representation in the C-suite and employee satisfaction for women of color hampers their ability
to meet the stakeholder goal.
Expectancy value can close this motivation gap in four stages. The first stage is to
describe the benefit of finishing the task (Pintrich, 2003). Beyond simply achieving the
stakeholder goal or avoiding a negative consequence for non-completion, executives need to
73
understand which benefits women of color offer that are different from their current succession
plan talent. Next, executives need to understand the risks of avoiding the task (Pintrich, 2003).
Administering a survey to the executives will help to determine their risk tolerance if they cannot
replace intention with action when adding women of color to their succession plans. The third
step is to inform the executives of benefits realized by organizations who have persisted with a
similar goal (Pintrich, 2003). For example, if a competitor has experienced increased employee
retention and increased employee satisfaction due to diversifying their executive team, Brighton
House leadership may be more likely to make the mental investment required to be equally
successful. Finally, conducting regular status checks and offering additional support for each
executive can build confidence and trust throughout the process (Pintrich, 2003). When making
this major organizational change, Brighton House leadership can benefit from receiving frequent
feedback and encouragement as they complete milestones toward completing the stakeholder
goal.
Organization Recommendations
Brighton House senior leaders will be measured against internal and external indicators to
lead organizational change and evaluate their learnings to increase employee satisfaction for
women of color using the New World Kirkpatrick (2016) model. This study prioritizes the
impact of organizational culture models and settings on the success of the learning program.
Rueda (2011) defines cultural models as intangible behaviors and rules within an organization,
whereas cultural settings are the spaces in which the behaviors take place and rules are enforced.
Table 6 lists the organization gaps leaders need to address before adding more women of color to
senior leadership succession plans in an effort to increase employee satisfaction. Cultural models
74
can be used to define both individuals and organizations, while the cultural settings can influence
the behaviors of individuals or an entire organization. In this study, there are two cultural
models, one of which is a priority to address. Additionally, there are three cultural settings: two
were a priority to address, and one emerged as a new gap outside of the original conceptual
framework. Each of these influences are followed by the corresponding organization principle
and recommendations to eliminate the gap.
Table 6
Summary of Organization Influences and Recommendations
Assumed
Organization
Influence
Validated as
a Gap?
Yes, High
Probability
or No
(Y, HP, N)
Principle and
Citation
Context-Specific
Recommendation
Resistance to change –
the organization needs
women of color as role
models at the
leadership level
(CM)
Y Diversity

Effective leaders
address
institutional
policies
and practices that
create barriers for
equity
(Bensimon, 2007)
Reskill senior leaders, talent
acquisition and recruitment
teams to understand the
importance of cultural
representation (in addition to
gender diversity) impacts
team effectiveness; assign
each senior leader and their
dedicated corporate recruiter
to build a partnership with
one professional organization
that represents diverse talent
(including women of color)
Restrictive rules,
policies and barriers –
the organization needs
to begin hiring and
promoting more
women of color into
management roles
(CS)
Y Diversity

Effective leaders
demonstrate a
commitment
to valuing
diversity through
inclusive action.
Form a council focused on
increasing inclusion and
belonging for women of
color; this council will make
quarterly recommendations
to senior leadership and
members will be composed
of culturally diverse women
75
They promote an
organizational
culture that
promotes equity
and inclusion and
cultivate
an atmosphere
where diversity is
viewed as
an asset to the
organization and
its
stakeholders.
(Angeline, 2011;
Prieto et al., 2009)

and allies for inclusive
behaviors across business
units
Need for perceived
stability - financial
services corporations
prioritize stability over
diversity to retain top
customers and
maintain relationships
within the industry
(CS)
Y Diversity

Effective leaders
regularly engage
in the
process of
reflection in order
to ensure their
actions promote
an atmosphere of
inclusion
and diversity.

They facilitate
problem-solving
strategies that
promote
objectivity,
equity,
and inclusivity.
(Bensimon, 2005;
DiTomaso et al.,
2007)
Create a job aid that helps
senior leadership assess
performance goal
achievement with succession
plan requirements; yearly
succession plan reviews need
to also require that senior
leaders nominate and sponsor
the development of at least
one woman of color; use this
information to reshape
existing mentoring and
leadership programs to be
inclusive of women of color
Authoritarian
leadership – the
organization needs to
improve diversity and
inclusion at the
N Diversity

Effective leaders
are aware of the

76
executive level to
affect change
(CM)
organization’s and
its community’s
historical
and socio-cultural
context (Chavez
et al., 2008)

Vague and constantly
changing performance
goals – the
organization needs to
review the parameters
under which
candidates are
considered for
succession plans
(CS)
N Accountability

Understanding the
relationship
between ethical
practice and
accountability
helps to avoid
dilemmas
associated with
meeting
organizational
goals (Biesta,
2004; Dubnick,
2003)

77
Rejecting the Status Quo to Stop Normalized Inequity in Hiring Practices
The findings of this study indicated that each of the leaders interviewed would be willing
to consider a woman of color for a future leadership opportunity, but only one leader could
identify a woman of color in the organization they could recommend. Bensimon (2007)
highlighted this cultural model gap faced by Brighton House as what happens when senior
leaders choose not to use disaggregated data to make decisions on equity and access. For
example, when senior leaders ask the recruitment team to source women of color into the
candidate pool for open mid-level management positions and the recruitment team presents a
candidate slate of White men and a single White woman, leaders will continue with the candidate
pool as presented to them rather than request a review of the pool presented. DiTomaso et al.
(2007) encouraged effective leaders to reflect on their actions to promote equity and inclusion. In
the instances when leaders have pushed back on the recruitment team for not delivering women
of color in the candidate slate, leaders were faced with the decision of delaying the hire of a
critical team member and slowing down productivity and profitability or spending time to source
their own diverse talent. Neither of these options are sustainable, and over time, these
recruitment behaviors create an understanding for leaders that reconfirms the perception that
women of color are not as well qualified for leadership roles (Ellevate, 2019; Flood, 2017). As a
result, the options for senior leader’s succession plans become homogeneous, and worse, this
hiring practice becomes normalized.
Diversity principles on mitigating organizational gaps were utilized to formulate a
recommendation in this instance. Bensimon (2005) observed that leaders need to track the impact
of their decisions on equity and inclusion from more than one data source. If these leaders rely
78
on candidate searches from a single recruitment team, they contribute to sustaining a cultural
model of resistance to change the number of women of color as role models in Brighton House
leadership. In this instance, both the senior leaders and their dedicated talent acquisition partner
need to be held accountable for their actions to make organizational change happen. The first
step is to educate the talent acquisition team and senior leadership on the benefits of cultural
representation and gender diversity within teams. Talent acquisition needs to understand how
diversity positively impacts team dynamics to reduce high employee turnover, and senior leaders
need to understand how diverse teams drive profitability and enhance employee satisfaction
(Carberry & Meyers, 2018). Finally, the senior leader and their designated talent acquisition
partner need to identify a professional organization, such as NAAIA (the National African
American Insurance Organization), to form a long-term relationship and network to source more
women of color for open positions. This relationship should not be singularly focused on paying
for sponsorship to include branding on the organization’s website and events. Also, this
relationship needs to allow Brighton House to communicate its challenges in recruiting senior
level talent and in return, receiving specific recommendations from the professional
organizations for active sponsorship.
Testing Perceptions and Inspiring Industry-wide Commitments for Change
During the interview process, a new organizational gap was identified: the need for
perceived stability. This gap was not previously accounted for in the conceptual framework, yet
it is a critical cultural setting to understand the actions of senior leaders at Brighton House. More
than 40% of the interviews conducted established the need to have leadership that is well-known
throughout the financial services industry to demonstrate organizational stability to customers.
79
Since there are no women of color in the senior leadership roles at Brighton House, and very few
throughout the entire financial services industry, these leaders have unconsciously disassociated
the presence of women of color in potential leadership roles in favor of established leaders who
are not diverse. To close this gap, effective leaders need to engage in problem solving strategies
that also promote objectivity, equity and inclusivity (Bensimon, 2007; DiTomaso et al., 2007).
The first step is to help senior leaders associate performance goal achievement with succession
plan requirements. After the knowledge gap for standardization of succession plan requirements
is closed, leaders need to be able to look at an objective measure (performance goals) and
identify women of color who have achieved success in their roles for future leadership
opportunities and inclusion on succession plans. The second step will be to hold leaders
accountable for nominating at least one woman of color on their succession plans and actively
sponsor their future development within the organization. In this process, senior leaders will
understand the challenges that women of color face to reach leadership levels and can work with
diversity executives to make updates to mentoring and leadership programs to advance culturally
diverse women. This organizational cultural setting influence was more important to address
than restrictive rules, policies and barriers because awareness of unconscious bias in this
perceived need for stability need to be resolved before rules and policies can change and barriers
can be eliminated.
Using reflection at every stage of the aforementioned process can close this organization
gap. Outside of sponsorship of women of color, leaders of the various financial services
corporations need to reflect on why they believe their stability stems from who is represented in
leadership at the organization. By requesting feedback from customers, broker partners, investors
80
and employees, senior leaders may find that there are other factors that influence the stability of
the organization at a greater scale (DiTomaso et al., 2007). Additionally, this request for
feedback needs to also determine if stability is a primary reason to do business with the
organization. As recommended in the previous organization gap, disaggregate data needs to be
collected to confirm the problem-solving approach and decision-making process (Bensimon,
2005). If this research shows that customers correlate stability with who represents leadership in
the corporation while ranking stability as a primary need for their financial service provider,
senior leaders will need to reflect on their practices to elevate women of color into roles to
enhance their leadership abilities. Finally, these efforts need to be communicated not only within
Brighton House to boost employee satisfaction, but externally and throughout the industry to
inspire overall change and a holistic commitment to diversity, inclusion, equity, and belonging
for women of color.
Integrated Implementation and Evaluation Plan
Implementation and Evaluation Framework
The recommendations made to close prioritized knowledge, motivation and
organizational gaps require additional work to implement and evaluate their efficiency toward
the stakeholder goal. Therefore, the New World Kirkpatrick (2016) Model was used to formulate
an implementation and evaluation plan to add more women or color to senior leaders’ succession
plans in an effort to increase employee satisfaction. By moving in reverse of the four levels:
Reaction, Learning, Behavior and Results, the plan is centered around the leading indicators for
results and the desired outcomes of learning (Kirkpatrick & Kirkpatrick, 2016). After the
program is implemented, Kirkpatrick and Kirkpatrick (2016) recommend evaluating each level
81
to both ensure knowledge transfer and the value of the learnings provide value to the
organization.
Organizational Purpose, Need & Expectations
Brighton House’s organizational goal is to increase employee satisfaction as measured by
ENPS to +50. Senior leadership plays an important role in the achievement of the stakeholder
goal to add more women of color to their succession plans to improve their satisfaction scores.
The organizational goal needs to be achieved before 2025 when ENPS will be measured again.
The expectations are that women of color who are added to succession plans will remain with the
organization, and other women of color will recognize the efforts of leadership to increase
representation at all levels of the organization, which will be reflected in their improved
satisfaction in the ENPS survey.
Level 4: Results and Leading Indicators
Level 4 is first the creation of accountability in an implementation plan. It measures the
degree of the outcomes experienced as a result of the learning program (Kirkpatrick &
Kirkpatrick, 2016). Once senior leaders overcome the prioritized knowledge, motivation, and
organization gaps, they can begin to take action toward achieving their goal of adding more
women of color to their succession plans in an effort to increase ENPS to +50. Ideally, these
actions will result in a variety of positive outcomes, both internal and external to Brighton
House. For example, if senior leadership’s efforts are noticed externally by organizations that
recognize corporations who champion diversity and inclusion, these honors may also help
Brighton House’s talent acquisition team attract more women of color. Additionally, more
women of color may be likely to stay with the organization, thereby reducing turnover costs for
their business units. Internally, the retention of women of color and their increased representation
82
on succession plans may also increase their overall employee satisfaction as measured by ENPS.
Table 7 outlines each of the internal and external outcomes with the associated metrics and
methods of measurement.
Table 7
Outcomes, Metrics, and Methods for External and Internal Outcomes
Outcome Metric(s) Method(s)
External Outcomes
Recognition on external
diversity and inclusion
indexes (e.g. Fortune’s
100 Best Workplaces for
Diversity)
Number of honors or recognition
received for diversity and
inclusion efforts
Announcements from external
diversity and inclusion index
organizations
Increased interest from
women of color who want
to work for Brighton
House
Number of women of color who
submit job applications
Talent acquisition data reports
Decreased costs to replace
women of color who
voluntarily terminate their
employment
Year-over-year (YOY) cost
savings of recruitment activities
Talent acquisition data reports
Business unit salary budgets
(turnover costs)
Internal Outcomes
Increased retention of
culturally diverse women
Number of employees who have
voluntarily terminated
employment
Human Resources people data
Increased representation
of women of color on
senior leadership
succession plans
Number of women of color on
succession plans for senior
leaders
Yearly succession planning
reports
Increased ENPS scores for
women of color
Score on ENPS measurement
scale (-100 to +100)
ENPS aggregate data
dashboards

Level 3: Behavior
Level 3 consists of critical behaviors that are required to minimize knowledge gaps.
Additionally, Level 3 lists required drivers from other stakeholders to encourage progress for
senior leadership to meet their goal of adding more women of color to their succession plans.
83
The required drivers align to the prioritized knowledge, motivation and organization gaps, and
support one or more of the identified critical behaviors.
Critical Behaviors
After the desired outcomes are known, moving to Level 3 will build clarity around the
behaviors that lead to these outcomes. Not only are the critical behaviors necessary to outline at
this level; the required drivers to move stakeholders to these behaviors need to also be examined
(Kirkpatrick & Kirkpatrick, 2016). The internal and external outcomes listed in the previous
section result from three critical behaviors demonstrated by senior leadership. First, leaders need
to reduce procedural knowledge gaps by reviewing data collected by their direct reports during
career conversations with women of color. This data, and partnerships with their human resource
business partner and talent management advisor, will help leaders understand how to best
position women of color for future leadership opportunities and succession planning. Also,
leaders who learn to establish talent pipelines for women of color and meet with diversity and
inclusion leaders assess the progress of their pipelines demonstrate behaviors that will help
overcome both declarative and metacognitive knowledge gaps. Table 8 presents the critical
behaviors along with metrics and methods of measurement and recommended timing of actions.
Table 8
Critical Behaviors, Metrics, Methods, and Timing for Evaluation
Critical Behavior Metric(s) Method(s) Timing
1. Senior leaders
request the data
collected by lower-
level managers
after utilizing the
succession
planning
job aid during 1:1
Number of succession
planning data reports
captured and
submitted to senior
leaders
Data reports submitted
through succession
planning portal on
company intranet
Ongoing
84
conversations with
women of color
2. Senior leaders
complete
recommended
training on policies
and processes to
build pipeline of
women of color for
leadership roles
Number of senior
leaders who complete
training
Completion report from
internal learning
management system
(LMS)
Every quarter
3. Senior leaders
attend diversity and
inclusion meetings
to stay updated on
the composition of
talent in their
business unit
Number of women of
color in the business
unit

Number of women of
color in leadership
roles

Number of women of
color who are
receiving mentorship

Number of women of
color hired into the
business unit

Number of women of
color who have
transferred out of the
business unit

Number of women
who have voluntarily
terminated from the
organization

Number of women of
color set to retire in
the next 5/10 years
(and the likelihood of
their retirement -
low/medium/high)
Human resources people
data
Every quarter

85
Required Drivers
The three critical behaviors above can be reinforced by four actions that reinforce,
encourage, reward, and monitor the efforts of senior leaders. Driving increased diversity and
inclusion within a global organization is not easy, so engaging various stakeholders to boost
accountability can increase leaders’ ability to add more women of color to succession plans.
Women of color can play a role in their success by sharing their perspectives about Brighton
House in focus groups to provide more insight into their experiences, and subsequently, reinforce
why their employee satisfaction scores are low. This information can inform managers to
encourage their direct reports who are women of color to complete stretch assignments to
increase their visibility in the organization and increase their leadership competencies. As more
women of color find opportunities to align themselves with senior leadership, the organization
will be rewarded with external diverse talent with similar aspirations. Finally, publishing
progress in annual reports to shareholders and customers can provide added accountability to
meeting senior leadership’s diversity goal. Table 9 features the required drivers with
corresponding method, timing and the supported critical behaviors.
Table 9
Required Drivers to Support Critical Behaviors
Method(s) Timing
Critical Behaviors
Supported
(1, 2, 3)
Reinforcing
HR business partners provide
job aids on succession
planning to senior leaders

Biannually 1,2,3
Brighton House publishes
progress reports both
internally and externally on
Yearly 1,2,3
86
efforts to advance women of
color as future senior leaders

Encouraging
Managers recommend women
of color for succession plan
consideration during talent
evaluation sessions

Ongoing 1
Rewarding
Talent acquisition recruits
more women of color
recognized as industry leaders
to leave competing firms and
work at Brighton House
Ongoing 3
Monitoring
DEI executive reviews
succession plans with senior
leaders
Quarterly 1,2,3

Organizational Support
Brighton House needs to hold senior leaders accountable for the critical behaviors to see
positive outcomes and make progress toward the stakeholder goal with added transparency. First,
senior leaders need to be reskilled about the economic value of diversity and inclusion to
Brighton House. Second, leaders need to become transparent about the stakeholder goal to
managers, talent acquisition, and recruitment teams. If these groups do not understand the
importance of cultural representation and gender diversity or have context for efforts to collect
data on career aspirations specifically for women of color, it may lead to a lack of clarity about
the request and a lack of motivation to continue. Third, senior leaders need to also be transparent
about how they want to improve diverse representation for women of color. If each senior leader
partners with a dedicated corporate recruiter to build a partnership with a professional
organization that represents diverse talent, the recruiter can serve as an accountability partner for
this effort. Finally, if senior leaders form a council to increase inclusion and belonging for
87
women of color, both internal and external stakeholders can be engaged to continue having
conversations about progress toward goals. These may include women of color currently
employed by Brighton House, deans from graduate schools at historically Black colleges and
universities (HBCUs), and executive directors of professional organizations for people of color.
Transparency and accountability can work in concert if senior leaders are willing to share the
importance of creating a sense of belonging for women of color to improve the overall
organizational culture and over time, the overall employee satisfaction scores.
Level 2: Learning
Once the required drivers to support critical behaviors are known, the next step is to
outline the learning goals and learning program for these stakeholders. Learning is Level 2 of the
New World Kirkpatrick Model and consists of five parts: knowledge, skills, attitude, confidence
and commitment (Kirkpatrick & Kirkpatrick, 2016). The senior leaders at Brighton House have
declarative, procedural and metacognitive knowledge gaps, so their learning goals and learning
program need to coordinate with these knowledge dimensions.
Learning Goals
Anderson and Krathwohl (2001) developed a taxonomy to classify the four knowledge
dimensions according to Clark and Estes. These are declarative (or factual), conceptual,
procedural and metacognitive (Clark & Estes, 2008). In order for senior leaders to perform the
critical behaviors listed under Level 3 and achieve their stakeholder goal, they need to first
acquire the following knowledge:
1. Understanding of how women of color are defined within the organization
(Declarative)
88
2. Awareness of the lack of support women of color feel within Brighton House for
their career progression (Declarative)
3. Knowledge of organizational history about the lack of support for career
progression for women of color and how it contributes to low employee
satisfaction (Declarative)
4. Recall which skills and abilities that Brighton House leaders look for in
succession talent (Declarative)
5. Refer to the succession planning job aid to when evaluating potential candidates
as successors (Procedural)
6. Deconstruct personal biases and reflect on the learnings that following the
established process to select successors according to the job aid will minimize the
occurrence of bias in the selection of succession talent (Metacognitive)
Program
A four-week, interactive learning journey for Brighton House senior leadership can
encourage progress toward the goal of adding more women of color to succession plans in an
effort to increase employee satisfaction. This learning journey will consist of four consecutive,
two-hour meetings with the senior leaders to discuss the areas of diversity, inclusion, equity and
belonging. The diversity session will help leaders gain knowledge about why diversity is
beneficial to increase innovation, balance group dynamics and establish a competitive advantage
in the marketplace. The inclusion session will focus on behaviors that are important to create an
environment where diverse employees can thrive. This session will also allow leaders to
understand how unconscious biases form and where they can show up within organizations. The
equity sessions will examine how systems and processes at Brighton House can either support or
89
inhibit equity for employees. The job aid for succession planning will be introduced in this
session. Finally, the belonging session will culminate the learning journey, as belonging will be
introduced as the effect employees feel when diversity, inclusion, and equity benefit all
employees. The employee satisfaction scores for women of color and verbatim will be shared in
this session to highlight that women of color do not feel a sense of belonging at Brighton House.
Finally, each senior leader will be paired with another leader as their accountability partner over
the next four months.
Through this program, the leaders will challenge each other to reshape the organizational
culture and take action to add more women of color to their succession plans as a step toward
increasing employee satisfaction. Due to the presence of COVID-19 in 2020, this program will
be delivered as a virtual web meeting and facilitated by Brighton House’s diversity executive.
This program is designed to address the prioritized knowledge gaps, while adding group
accountability to increase expectancy value motivation to make progress toward the stakeholder
goal and resolve organization culture gaps.
Evaluation of the Components of Learning
The learning program will also require a number of activities to ensure senior leaders are
closing their declarative, procedural and metacognitive knowledge gaps. Table 10 provides a list
of the activities incorporated into the program and their timing to evaluate the effectiveness of
the learning goals.

90
Table 10
Evaluation of the Components of Learning for the Program
Methods or Activities Timing
Declarative Knowledge “I know it.”
Knowledge check of the meaning of ‘women of
color’
At the beginning of the first session
(diversity)
Discussion about unconscious bias and its effects
on an organization
During the second session (inclusion)
Knowledge test of the differences between
‘diversity’, ‘inclusion’, ‘equity’, and ‘belonging’
End of each session
Procedural Skills “I can do it right now.”
Teach-back to accountability partners to evaluate
talent for succession plans according to job aid
At the end of the final session (belonging)
Individual responses from each leader about how
they will carry out diversity, inclusion, equity
and belonging actions within their respective
business units at Brighton House
End of each session
Attitude “I believe this is worthwhile.”
Facilitator's observations of senior leaders in
session (do they keep webcam on? are they
contributing to the conversation?)
During each session
Quality of feedback shared at the end of the
session from senior leaders (is the feedback
additive or repetitive?)
End of each session
Confidence “I think I can do it on the job.”
Confidence check feedback survey on
application of concepts learned
End of each session
Commitment “I will do it on the job.”
Assignment of accountability partners between
senior leaders
During final session

Level 1: Reaction
Finally, Level 1 of the New World Kirkpatrick Model focuses on the reactions of the
learners to a recommended training program (Kirkpatrick & Kirkpatrick, 2016). Senior leaders’
reactions are divided into three categories - engagement, relevance, and customer satisfaction.
Table 11 provides a list of relevant techniques to measure stakeholder reactions and their timing
within the learning program.
91
Table 11
Components to Measure Reactions to the Program
Method(s) or Tool(s) Timing
Engagement
Facilitator observations During each session
Senior leader feedback comments End of each session
Relevance
Senior leader responses to the knowledge
tests of the differences between ‘diversity’,
‘inclusion’, ‘equity’, and ‘belonging’
End of each session
Accountability partner check-ins 30/60/90/120 days post-training
Customer Satisfaction
Learner feedback survey/confidence check End of each session
Accountability partner check-ins 30/60/90/120 days post-training

Evaluation Tools
Kirkpatrick and Kirkpatrick (2016) share five foundational principles for effective
training and development. The final principle is learning professionals need to provide a series of
proof points that their training program was valuable to goal achievement. Within this study, the
training program will assess proof of knowledge adoption at three levels: during each session, at
the end of each session and in 30-day intervals after the program ends. These evaluation periods
are presented in the following two paragraphs.
Immediately Following the Program Implementation
The training program is interactive and allows the facilitator to observe the senior leaders
in real time. Appendix C provides a checklist of behaviors that may indicate learning
engagement or disengagement. Additionally, at the end of each session, senior leaders will
complete three actions: share feedback on the material learned in front of the group, complete a
multiple-choice online survey with a question about the differences between ‘diversity’,
‘inclusion’, ‘equity’, and ‘belonging’, and respond to an open-ended confidence check on the
same online survey. The questions to appear on the online survey are in Appendix D. The
92
purpose of the observation is to determine if learners require more explanation around a given
topic or if a different learning approach is beneficial to ensure knowledge transfer. The
opportunity to share feedback in front of the group satisfies Level 1 evaluation criteria and helps
the facilitator ensure that each leader is able to take away an action that is specific and actionable
for their business unit. The confidence check satisfies Level 2 evaluation criteria to solidify a
positive attitude toward making organizational change and a commitment to see the actions
through to completion.
Delayed for a Period After the Program Implementation
Momentum is essential for senior leaders to meet their goal of adding women of color to
their succession plans in an effort to increase employee satisfaction. Kirkpatrick and Kirkpatrick
(2016) recommend that post-program evaluations need to monitor the most important activities
for goal completion. Therefore, senior leaders will complete self-evaluations in 30-day, 60-day,
and 90-day intervals on their actions after the training program ends. This assessment appears in
Appendix E. This post-training evaluation tool consists of questions to address how practical it
was to apply the learning to encourage diversity (Level 1), followed by how their individual
behavior has changed to promote a culture of inclusion (Level 2), how much influence they have
had on building equity within the organizational culture (Level 3), and the progress senior
leaders have made toward their stakeholder goal for employee satisfaction and belonging
(Level 4).
Data Analysis and Reporting
After completing the 30-day, 60-day, and 90-day post-program self-evaluations, senior
leaders will receive a scorecard similar to what is displayed in Figure 3. This scorecard will
utilize the same ENPS scoring system that is used for employee satisfaction and deliver a score
93
for actions related to diversity, inclusion, equity, and belonging between -100 and +100.
Additionally, the senior leaders will see how their individual scores compare to the average
scores of the other senior leaders. This will help these stakeholders understand if they are making
better progress than their peers, making average progress or lagging behind in their efforts. In
addition to the scorecard, each senior leader will have a meeting with the diversity and inclusion
executive to review critical behaviors necessary to make progress toward the stakeholder goal.
Figure 3
Post-Program Self-Evaluation Scorecard for Senior Leaders

Summary
The New World Kirkpatrick Model was used as the framework to structure a learning
process, implement training and evaluate the effectiveness of the learning process and training
activities. By starting with the leading indicators needed at Level 4 of this model, stakeholders
are able to connect the training to business objectives and outcomes at the beginning (Kirkpatrick
& Kirkpatrick, 2016). Having the support of senior leadership in the early stages of learning and
development also helps to define the critical behaviors one would expect to see as a result of the
training at Level 3. Additionally, ancillary stakeholders play a role in monitoring, reinforcing,
encouraging and rewarding the critical behaviors desired by the training facilitator at Level 3
(Kirkpatrick & Kirkpatrick, 2016). Once the methods, tools and techniques are established to
94
measure knowledge mastery at Level 2, the training facilitator can also evaluate skill, attitude,
confidence, and commitment for senior leadership to persist in achieving their stakeholder goal.
The data collected from the self-evaluations will provide specific examples of where senior
leaders need to continue the effort to close knowledge, motivation and organization culture gaps.
Finally, the training process is iterative, and senior leaders may require multiple instances of
training on diversity, inclusion, equity, and belonging to improve the working environment for
women of color and all employees of Brighton House.
Limitations
There were three limitations within this study. First, the senior leadership population was
small (n = 14). After establishing the criteria to identify leaders who were able to answer the
interview questions, the sample size shrunk to 11 individuals. Finally, two individuals rescinded
their statements due to questions the organization has received about their diversity and inclusion
practices following the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and the rise of the Black Lives
Matter movement in May 2020. The next limitation was the reliance on quantitative ENPS
survey data to understand the sentiment of women of color within Brighton House. Robinson and
Firth Leonard (2019) state quantitative survey data is often not enough to determine causation of
themes. Therefore, the researcher needed to also review ENPS survey verbatim and exit
interview responses for women of color for each business unit before interviewing each senior
leader. Most of the women of color are within four business units, which meant disaggregating
the ENPS and exit survey by business unit did not demonstrate an identical employee experience
for women of color. Finally, the prevalence of COVID-19 in the U.S. during the interview period
of this study caused many scheduling issues. Senior leaders were focused on guiding the
organization during a period of uncertainty, and as a result, their availability to participate in
95
interviews was limited. Three leaders had to reduce their interview time from one hour to thirty
minutes, which prevented the researcher from asking many probing questions about their
responses.
Future Research
Future studies can include the following: 1) an expansion of the study to the extended
leadership team, 2) an expansion of the study to additional industries, and 3) a focus on women
of color as stakeholders to gain perspective on how they take control of their careers in U.S.
corporations. First, while the senior leadership team at Brighton House have an established
stakeholder goal to increase employee satisfaction for women of color, they need to rely on their
direct reports to help them achieve the goal. The extended leadership team, or the direct reports
of the senior leaders, do not have specific language in their goals to increase employee
satisfaction for women of color. However, they need to show evidence of creating an inclusive
work environment each year, so conducting interviews with this larger group may provide
additional insight into organizational culture and barriers to increase employee satisfaction for
women of color.
Next, this study focuses on Brighton House, which is within the financial services
industry. The financial services industry is still considered to be a male-dominated industry,
according to research by McKinsey (2018), and out of the 2019 National Association for Female
Executives’ Top 70 Companies for Women, financial services firms only made up 11% of the
represented firms (Frankel, 2019). Expanding this study to draw parallels between additional
business-to-business male-dominated industries, or to draw contrasts with business-to-consumer
industries that have more female representation in senior leadership, would be advantageous to
examine how employee satisfaction for women of color fares in these environments.
96
Finally, the researcher relied on historical secondary data that was collected in a
quantitative format to understand employee satisfaction for women of color at Brighton House.
Future research should place women of color as the stakeholders of focus and investigate how
their efforts to advance their careers have directly impacted their employee satisfaction.
According to verbatim from ENPS surveys and exit data, employee satisfaction for women of
color was impacted by factors beyond career advancement. These factors include increased
workload after corporate restructuring, lack of mentoring, poor direct manager relationships, and
a lack of understanding for unique challenges women of color face in the workplace. Some of
these challenges included microaggressions which were disclosed exclusively on exit surveys.
The disclosure of microaggressions in the workplace echoes research that women have no
expectations of favorable resolution if they were to report this behavior during their tenure (Rehg
et al., 2008).
Conclusion
This study evaluated Brighton House’s strategy to increase low employee satisfaction for
women of color by adding more women of color into senior leadership succession plans. This
problem was important to study for three reasons. First, it is costly to replace lost talent (Society
for Human Resource Management, 2019). Second, most initiatives to advance underrepresented
groups in corporations are ineffective (Agovino, 2019; Kalev et al., 2006; McGirt, 2016).
Finally, low employee satisfaction impacts business performance (Hunt et al., 2018; Predictive
Index, 2019). Nine senior leaders were interviewed about their progress to add more women of
color to their succession plans by 2023 and the Clark and Estes (2008) framework was utilized to
validate knowledge, motivation and organization gaps related to achieving the stakeholder goal.
97
Nine gaps were confirmed from eleven knowledge, motivation and organization
influences. One of the confirmed cultural setting influences. perceived stability within the
financial services industry, emerged during the stakeholder interviews. The findings of these
interviews demonstrate a lack of knowledge and motivation to make organizational change that
supports employee satisfaction for women of color, as well as a need to make changes to the
organizational culture within the financial services industry to recruit and retain women of color.
Recommendations to close knowledge, motivation, and organizational gaps are based in
an implementation and evaluation plan to add more women or color to senior leaders’ succession
plans in an effort to increase employee satisfaction. The New World Kirkpatrick (2016) Model
was used create a learning plan to educate senior leadership on how to champion diversity,
inclusion, equity, and belonging for women of color at Brighton House. The four-week,
interactive learning journey provides knowledge about why diversity is beneficial to Brighton
House, how unconscious biases form, and how to challenge equity in systems and processes.
Each session will be supplemented with accountability steps to increase expectancy value
motivation, make progress toward the stakeholder goal, and resolve organization culture gaps.
The actions of leaders will be evaluated in intervals of 30 days, 60 days, and 90 days after the
fourth learning session.
Given the surge of nationwide protests that followed the deaths of George Floyd and
Breonna Taylor in 2020, the feasibility of senior leaders following the recommended learning
plan and making efforts to increase employee satisfaction for women of color by adding them to
succession plans is high. Maurer (2020) reported a 55% increase in diversity, inclusion, and
equity job openings since June 8, 2020, and organizations are looking for candidates who have a
knowledge of the industry and can gain rapid trust with the leadership team. The critical
98
behaviors, required drivers, and organizational support are essential to boosting the progress of
senior leaders through their educational experience to close knowledge, motivation, and
organizational gaps. Finally, all stakeholder groups at Brighton House need to have an
understanding that any changes made to improve employee satisfaction and diversity at the
senior leadership level will happen as part of a long-term journey, and not a sprint. As senior
leaders increase their knowledge and maintain motivation to create a sense of belonging for
women of color, all employees can benefit from an improved organizational culture.
99
References
Accenture. (2018). Advancing all women - How women of color experience the
workplace. Network of Executive Women. http://www.newonline.org/
AdvancingAllWomen.pdf&usg=AOvVaw2sAcEODnINjM9b6-tGG7B_.
Agovino, T. (2019). Bridging the gender divide. Society for Human
Resources Management. https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/news/all-things-work/Pages/tips-
for-creating-a-more-diverse-workplace.
Aguinis, H., & Kraiger, K. (2009). Benefits of training and development for individuals
and teams, organizations, and society. Annual Review of Psychology, 60, 451-474.
Ahola, K., Toppinen-Tanner, S., & Seppänen, J. (2017). Interventions to alleviate burnout
symptoms and to support return to work among employees with burnout: Systematic
review and meta-analysis. Burnout Research, 4, 1-11.
Ali, M., Metz, I. & Kulik, C. (2015). Retaining a diverse workforce: The impact of
gender-focused human resource management. Human Resource Management
Journal, 25(4), 580-599.
Ariely, D. (2008). Predictably irrational: the hidden forces that shape our decisions
(1st ed.). Harper.
Avery, D., McKay, P., Tonidandel, S., Volpone, S & Morris, M. (2012). Is There a
Method to the Madness? Examining How Racioethnic Matching Influences Retail
Store Productivity. Personnel Psychology, 65(8), 167-199.
Bain & Company. (2019). The employee net promoter system.
http://netpromotersystem.com/about/employee-engagement.aspx.

100
Bjorkelo, B., Einarsen, S., & Matthiesen, S. B. (2010). Predicting proactive behaviour at
work: Exploring the role of personality as an antecedent of whistleblowing
behaviour. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 83(2),
371-394.
Blunt, C. (2018). The 15% human service in a digital age. Training Journal, 22-25.
Bowling, N. A., Wagner, S. H., & Beehr, T. A. (2018). The facet satisfaction scale: An
effective affective measure of job satisfaction facets. Journal of Business and
Psychology, 33(3), 383-403.
Brayfield, A. H. & Crockett, W. H. (1955). Employee attitudes and employee
performance. Psychological Bulletin, 52(5), 396-424.
Brighton House” Profile. (2008, March 1). [PDF] “Brighton House”.
[Website redacted for anonymity purposes].
“Brighton House” Mission, Vision and Values. (2017). “Brighton House”. [Website
redacted for anonymity purposes].
Brown, M.E. & Treviño, L.K. (2006) Ethical leadership: A review and future directions.
The Leadership Quarterly, 17(6): 595-616.
Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2019). Economic News Releases.
https://www.bls.gov/bls/newsrels.htm.
Cakebread, C. (2017). These are the 47 things Uber has agreed to do to change its
company culture. Business Insider. https://www.businessinsider.com/47-ways-uber-is-
changing-its-culture-2017-6.

101
Carberry, E.J. & Meyers, J.S.M. (2018). Moves to increase diversity and inclusion in the
workplace. (2018). Human Resource Management International Digest, 26(2),
41-43.
Catalyst. (2018, August 1). Quick Take: Why Diversity and Inclusion Matter.
https://www.catalyst.org/research/why-diversity-and-inclusion-matter.
Catalyst. (2020, March 19). Women of color in the United States: Quick take.
https://www.catalyst.org/research/women-of-color-in-the-united-states.
Clark, R. E., & Estes, F. (2008). Turning Research into Results: A Guide to Selecting the
Right Performance Solutions. Information Age Publishing.
Creswell, J.W. & Poth, C.N. (2018). Qualitative inquiry & research design.
Sage Publications.
Davies, R., Lavandier, H., & Schwartz, K. (2017). In search of a better stretch target.
McKinsey. https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/strategy-and-corporate-
finance/our-insights/in-search-of-a-better-stretch-target.
Deloitte. Missing pieces report: The 2016 board diversity census of women and
minorities on Fortune 500 boards. (2016).
https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/us/Documents/center-for-corporate-
governance/us-board-diversity-census-missing-pieces.pdf.
Deloitte. Missing pieces report: The 2018 board diversity census of women and
minorities on Fortune 500 boards. (2018).
https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/us/Documents/center-for-board-
effectiveness/us-cbe-missing-pieces-report-2018-board-diversity-census.pdf.

102
Dewar, C., Hirt, M., & Keller, S. (2019). The mindsets and practices of excellent CEOs.
McKinsey.
Dover, T., Major, B., & Kaiser, C. (2016). Members of high-status groups are threatened
by pro-diversity organizational messages. Journal of Experimental Social
Psychology, 62(C), 58-67.
Downey, S., van der Werff, L., Thomas, K., & and Plaut, V. (2015). The role of diversity
practices and inclusion in promoting trust and employee engagement. Journal of
Applied Social Psychology, 45(1), 35-44.
Drach-Zahavy, A. & Trogan, R. (2013) Opposites attract or attack? The moderating role
of diversity climate in the team diversity-interpersonal aggression relationship.
Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 18(4), 449-457.
Eccles, J. (2006). Expectancy value motivational theory. http://www.
education.com/reference/article/expectancy-value-motivational-theory.
Edgley, C., Sharma, N., & Anderson-Gough, F. (2016). Diversity and professionalism in
the Big Four firms: Expectation, celebration and weapon in the battle for talent. Critical
Perspectives on Accounting, 35(C), 13-34.
Ellevate. (2019, July 1). Driving equality in the workplace: Practical solutions to some of
the business world’s most persistent issues of inequality.
https://www.ellevatenetwork.com/videos/644.
Erez, M., & Gati, E. (2004). A dynamic, multi-level model of culture: From the micro
level of the individual to the macro level of a global culture. Applied Psychology: An
International Review, 53, 583–598.

103
Fink, A. (2013). How to conduct surveys: A step-by-step guide. (5
th
ed.). SAGE.
Frankel, B. (2019). NAFE 2019 Top 70 Companies for Executive Women. National
Association for Female Executives. https://www.workingmother.com/nafe-top-
companies-for-executive-women-winners-2019.
Frye, L. (2017). The cost of a bad hire can be astronomical. Society for Human
Resources Management. https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-
topics/employee-relations/pages/cost-of-bad-hires.aspx.
Gallimore, R., & Goldenberg, C. (2001). Analyzing cultural models and settings to
connect minority achievement and school improvement research. Educational
Psychologist, 36, 45-56.
Gallup. (2018). Three requirements of a diverse and inclusive culture – and why they
matter for your organization. [PDF]. https://www.gallup.com/workplace/242138/
requirements-diverse-inclusive-culture.aspx.
Girdauskiene, L., & Eyvazzade, F. (2015). The Profile of an Effective Female Leadership
in Multicultural Context. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 210(C),
11-20.
Glesne, C. (2011). Chapter 6: But is it ethical? Considering what is “right.” In Becoming
qualitative researchers: An introduction (4th ed.) (pp. 162-183). Pearson.
Harer, J. (2008). Employees as customers judging quality: enhancing employee
assessment. New Library World, 109(7/8), 307-320.
Harjoto, M., Laksmana, I & Lee, R. (2015) Board Diversity and Corporate Social
Responsibility. Journal of Business Ethics, 132(4), 641-660.

104
Hines, G. H. (1973). Cross-cultural differences in two-factor motivation theory. Journal
of Applied Psychology. 58(3), 375-377.
Hunt, V., Prince, S., Dixon-Fyle, S. & Yee, L. (January 2018). Delivering through
diversity. McKinsey & Company. https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/McKinsey
/Business%20Functions/Organization/Our%20Insights/Delivering%20through%20diversi
ty/Delivering-throughdiversity_full-report.ashx.
Janis, I. L. (1972). Victims of groupthink: A psychological study of foreign-policy decisions and
fiascoes. Houghton Mifflin.
Johnson, R. B. & Christensen, L. B. (2015). Educational research: Quantitative, qualitative, and
mixed approaches. (5
th
ed.). SAGE.
Jones, S. (2017). White men account for 72% of corporate leadership at 16 of the
Fortune 500 companies. Fortune. https://fortune.com/2017/06/09/white-men-senior-
executives-fortune-500-companies-diversity-data.
Jonsen, K., Maznevski, M., & Schneider, S. (2010). Gender differences in leadership –
believing is seeing: Implications for managing diversity. Equality, Diversity and
Inclusion: An International Journal, 29(6), 549-572.
Kahn, W. (1990). Psychological Conditions of Personal Engagement and Disengagement
at Work. Academy of Management Journal, 33(4), 692.
Kalev, A., Dobbin, F., & Kelly, E. (2006). Best Practices or Best Guesses? Assessing the
Efficacy of Corporate Affirmative Action and Diversity Policies. American Sociological
Review, 71(4), 589–617.
Kaptein, M. (2011). Understanding unethical behavior by unraveling ethical
culture. Human Relations, 64(6), 843-869.
105
Katz, M., LaVan, H., & Lopez, Y. P. (2012). Whistleblowing in organizations:
Implications from litigation. S.A.M. Advanced Management Journal, 77(3), 4-17.
Kezar, A., & Eckel, P. (2002). The Effect of Institutional Culture on Change Strategies in
Higher Education: Universal Principles or Culturally Responsive Concepts?
Journal of Higher Education, 73(4), 435-460.
Krathwohl, D. R. (2002). A revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy: An overview. Theory Into
Practice, 41, 212-218.
Lake, C. J., Highhouse, S., & Shrift, A. G. (2018). Validation of the Job-Hopping
Motives Scale. Journal of Career Assessment, 26(3), 531-548.
Locke, E. A., & Latham, G. P. (2019). The development of goal setting theory: A half
century retrospective. Motivation Science, 5(2), 93-105.
Lorenzo, R., Voight, N., Tsusaka, M., Krentz, M. & Abouzahr, K. (2018, January 23).
How Diverse Leadership Teams Boost Innovation. Boston Consulting Group.
BCG Perspectives. https://www.bcg.com/en-us/publications/2018/how-diverse-
leadership-teams-boost-innovation.aspx.
Macdonald, S., & MacIntyre, P. (1997). The generic job satisfaction scale: Scale
development and its correlates. Employee Assistance Quarterly, 13(2), 1-16.
MacGregor, J., & Stuebs, M. (2014). The silent Samaritan syndrome: Why the whistle
remains unblown. Journal of Business Ethics, 120(2), 149-164.

106
Maurer, R. (2020). New DE&I roles spike after racial justice protests. Society for Human
Resource Management. https://www.shrm.org/ResourcesAndTools/hr-topics/talent-
acquisition/Pages/New-DEI-Roles-Spike-After-Racial-Justice-
Protests.aspx?utm_source=marketo&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=editorial~Tal
ent~NL_2020-8-19_Talent-Acquisition&linktext=DEI-Roles-Spike-After-Racial-Justice-
Protests&mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiWlRoa05EY3haakJtWlRFeiIsInQiOiIxMkpsc09BcjdnRW5C
ck1FbGtPYkw0eFh0T2hmNWRWcGduNVVINFVLVWJCYzZVUVJYMDIxXC9rQ1U
2VHBpdGFxVDgzMUY3VDV4RTBFMWVIdFR5XC9MVWhiWHRqTHVXbmJkME1
zeFVRdHRGYjBYSjNUN25ubTE5aTk4V2xEb3g4cXlFIn0%3D.
Maxwell, J. A. (2013). Qualitative research design: An interactive approach. (3
rd
ed.).
SAGE.
Mayo, E. (1924). Revery and industrial fatigue. Journal of Personnel Research,
3, 273-281.
Mazzoni, M. (2018). Only two Fortune 500 CEOs are women of color. What’s up with
that? TriplePundit. https://www.triplepundit.com/story/2018/
only-two-fortune-500-ceos-are-women-color-whats/11146.
McEwan, E. K. & McEwan, P. J. (2003). Making sense of research. SAGE.
McGirt, E. (2016). Why Race and Culture Matter in the C-Suite. Fortune Magazine.
http://fortune.com/black-executives-men-c-suite.
Medallia. (2018). The “why” behind Net Promoter Score. [PDF] Medallia.
https://www.medallia.com/net-promoter-score.

107
Mento, A. J.; Steel, R. P.; Karren, R. J. (1987). A meta-analytic study of the effects of goal
setting on task performance: 1966-1984. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision
Processes, 39: 52-83.
Merriam, S. B., & Tisdell, E. J. (2016). Qualitative research: A guide to design and
implementation. (4
th
ed.). Jossey-Bass.
Mobley, W. H. (1977). Intermediate linkages in the relationship between job satisfaction
and employee turnover. Journal of Applied Psychology, 62(2), 237-240.
Neubert, M. J., & Dyck, B. (2016). Developing sustainable management theory: Goal-
setting theory based in virtue. Management Decision, 54(2), 304-320.
Ng, E., & Sears, G. (2018). Walking the Talk on Diversity: CEO Beliefs, Moral Values,
and the Implementation of Workplace Diversity Practices. Journal of Business
Ethics, 1-14.
Pajares, F. (2006). Self-efficacy theory. http://www.education.com/reference/article/self-
efficacy-theory.
Phuttipaitoon, S. & Kleiner, B. (2003). How to show retaliation at work. Equal
Opportunities International, 22(6/7), 37-45.
Pintrich, P. R. (2003). A motivational science perspective on the role of student
motivation in learning and teaching contexts. Journal of Educational Psychology,
95, 667-686.
Porter, L. W., Steers, R. M., Mowday, R. T., & Boulian, P. V. (1974). Organizational
commitment, job satisfaction, and turnover among psychiatric
technicians. Journal of Applied Psychology, 59(5), 603–609

108
Post, C. & Byron, K. (2015). Women on boards and firm financial performance: A meta-
analysis. Academy of Management Journal, 58(5), 1546-1571.
Qualtrics XM Institute. (2019). XM Institute NPS Benchmarks.
https://www.qualtrics.com/marketplace/nps-benchmarks.
Predictive Index. (2019). Annual Employee Engagement Report. [PDF].
https://go1.predictiveindex.com/report/2019-engagement-survey-report.
Reeves, M., Whitaker, K., Lotan, H., Hansell, G., & Parikh, H. (2018). The global
landscape of corporate vitality. [PDF]. BCG. http://image-
src.bcg.com/Images/BCG-Global-Landscape-of-Corporate-Vitality-Oct-
2018_tcm9-205660.pdf.
Rehg, M. T., Miceli, M. P., Near, J. P., & Scotter, J. R. V. (2008). Antecedents and
outcomes of retaliation against whistleblowers: Gender differences and power
relationships. Organization Science, 19(2), 221-240, 378-379.
Resick, C., Hargis, M., Shao, P., Dust, S. (2013). Ethical leadership, moral equity
judgments, and discretionary workplace behavior. Human Relations, 66(7),
951-972.
Riveral, J. (2013). Net promoter score and employee capability. Training &
Development, 40(4), 30-31.
Roethlisberger, F.J. (1945). The foreman: Master and victim of double talk. Harvard
Business Review, 23(3), 283-298.
Rothwell, J. & Crabtree, S. (2019). Not just a job: New evidence on the quality of work
in the United States. [PDF]. Gallup, Washington, D.C.

109
Rueda, R. (2011) The 3 dimensions of improving student performance. New York:
Teachers College Press.
Rungtusanatham, M., & Anderson, J. C. (1996). A clarification on conceptual and
methodological issues related to the job characteristics model. Journal of Operations
Management, 14(4), 357-367.
Saks, A. M. (2006). Antecedents and consequences of employee engagement. Journal of
Managerial Psychology, 21(7), 600.
Saks, A. M. (2019). Antecedents and consequences of employee engagement
revisited. Journal of Organizational Effectiveness, 6(1), 19-38.
Schein, E. H. (2004). The concept of organizational culture: Why bother? In E. H. Schein, (Ed.),
Organizational culture and leadership (3
rd
ed.) (pp. 3–24).
Jossey Bass.
Schwab, K. (2016). The global gender gap report 2016. (2016). World Economic Forum.
https://www.weforum.org/reports/the-global-gender-gap-report-2016.
Scott, S. & Palincsar, A. (2006). Sociocultural theory. http://www.education.com/
reference/article/sociocultural-theory.
Shearer, C., & Isha Shah, I. (2018, December 18). Opportunity industries: Exploring the
industries that concentrate good and promising jobs in metropolitan America. [PDF].
Brookings Institution. https://www.brookings.edu/research/opportunity-industries.
Sinek, S. (2009). Start with why: How great leaders inspire everyone to take action.
Portfolio.

110
Singh, J., Hanse, M.T. & Podolny, J.M. (2010). The World Is Not Small for Everyone:
Inequity in Searching for Knowledge in Organizations. Management
Science, 56(9), 1415-1438.
Smith, J. (1998). The Enduring Legacy of Elton Mayo. Human Relations, 51(3),
221-249.
Smulison, J. (2019). RIMS Risk Management Talent 2025 Report.
http://rims.org/resources/risk-knowledge.
Society for Human Resource Management. (2017). 2016 Employee Job Satisfaction &
Engagement: Revitalizing a changing workforce. https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/
trends-and-forecasting/research-and- surveys/Pages/Job-Satisfaction-and-
Engagement-Report-Revitalizing-Changing-Workforce.aspx.
Svensson, J. & van Genugten, M. (2013). Retaliation against reporters of unequal
treatment. Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal, 32(2),
129-143.
Tockey, D. & Ignatova, M. (2019). New report: Women apply to fewer jobs than men,
but are more likely to get hired. LinkedIn. http://business.linkedin.com/talent-
solutions/blog/diversity/2019/how-women-find-jobs-gender-report.
Torchia, M., Calabrò, A., & Morner, M. (2015). Board of Directors’ Diversity,
Creativity, and Cognitive Conflict: The Role of Board Members’
Interaction. International Studies of Management & Organization, 45(1), 6-24.
Tsusaka, M., Reeves, M. & Hurder, S. & Harnoss, J. (July 2017). Diversity at work.
Boston Consulting Group. BCG Perspectives.
https://www.bcg.com/en-us/publications/2017/diversity-at-work.aspx.
111
Uhrbrock, R. S. (1934). Attitudes of 4430 employees. Journal of Social Psychology,
5(3), 365.
Van Vianen, A., Rosenauer, D., Homan, A., Horstmeier, C., & Voelpel, S. (2018). Career
mentoring in context: A multilevel study on differentiated career mentoring and
career mentoring climate. Human Resource Management, 57(2), 583-599.
Vroom, V.H. (1970). Management and motivation. Penguin.
Weiss, R. S. (1994). Chapter 5: Issues in interviewing. In Learning from strangers: The
art and method of qualitative interview studies (pp. 141-150). The Free Press.
Wilson Burns, E., & Ulrich, D. (2016). The evolving diversity agenda. Strategic HR
Review, 15(5), 220-225.

112
Appendix A: Sampling Criteria
Participating Stakeholders
The U.S. senior leadership team was the participating stakeholder for this study. These
fourteen individuals represent each business unit within Brighton House. The criteria for the
sample was senior leadership members with tenure for a minimum of three years before the
study. These criteria were important to allow the researcher to interview senior leadership
members who were in role when the stakeholder goal to increase employee satisfaction for
women of color was established. Within the senior leadership team, there were five women and
two culturally diverse men.
Qualitative Interview Sampling Criteria and Rationale
The research questions for this study are designed to evaluate the stakeholder goal of
adding women of color to the succession plans of senior leaders in an effort to meet the
organizational goal of increasing employee satisfaction as measured by ENPS. Sampling
methods used need to be able to help the researcher accomplish three tasks as identified in the
Clark and Estes (2008) KMO conceptual framework. The first task is to identify senior
leadership bias which creates barriers for women of color to become future leaders. Senior
leadership may not be aware of their bias or may not be willing to admit to having a bias in a
questionnaire, therefore, face-to-face interviews where the researcher can build trust and use
probing questions to uncover values and beliefs is ideal (Johnson & Christensen, 2014). Next, to
understand what would motivate leaders to change their succession plans to include more women
of color, the researcher asked open-ended questions in an informal conversational interview style
to build on unexpected concepts shared by the subjects (Johnson & Christensen, 2014). Finally,
to determine which performance goals need to be modified and which imposed restrictions need
113
to be eliminated to make leadership more inclusive, the data collected was not generalized from
the sample. Drawing generalizations from a small sample can result in biased representation
within a study (Fink, 2013). Therefore, all responses were considered independently before
defining response trends.
Qualitative Interview Sampling Strategy and Rationale
In this qualitative study, the researcher used a non-random, purposeful, maximum
variation sampling strategy. Based on the sampling criteria, twelve senior leadership members
were eligible for the study. Six participants are ideal for informal and virtual conversational
interviews to reach a representative response rate of 50%. Each eligible participant will provide a
perspective on their knowledge of employee satisfaction as determined by ENPS, their
motivation to adding women of color to their succession plans and the organizational culture that
impacts their behavior and actions. The researcher conducted interviews over two months to
accommodate business disruption due to COVID-19. Senior leaders were recruited directly by
the researcher via corporate email from the researcher who explained the purpose of the study.
Qualitative Data Collection and Instrumentation
The stakeholder goal for Brighton House is to add 20 women of color to the succession
plans of senior leaders by 2023. There are four general sampling processes available to the
researcher in this study: qualitative interviews, observations, documents and quantitative
surveys. According to Merriam and Tisdell (2016), the purpose of an observation is to provide
context or specific incidents or behaviors and so on that can be used as reference points to
subsequent interviews. Within Brighton House, the process of building a succession plan is not
observable as all of the senior leadership already have an established succession plan. For this
114
reason, it was not possible to observe the succession planning process of twelve different senior
leadership members within the span of this study.
Interviews
Interview protocol. The researcher used a semi-structured and information interview
protocol used with the Brighton House Senior leadership. The semi-structured approach defined
a purpose to the conversation while leaving space to delve deeper into stakeholder responses to
open-ended questions (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). Also, the interviews were conducted
independently in a virtual, person-to-person encounter, rather than a collective interview. Having
others present in an interview’s setting affects what questions a researcher asks and what
information a researcher reports, especially when discussing sensitive information (Weiss, 1994).
This one-on-one approach allowed the researcher to probe into specific behaviors, feelings and
interpretations leaders expressed (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). The semi-structured interview was
also used to uncover themes to understand the knowledge, motivation and organizational culture
constructs that prevent more women of color from being included in succession plans. When
performing qualitative research, the researcher’s goal was to understand how sample groups
interpret characteristics within their environment (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016).
The interview questions associated with the conceptual framework focus on aspects and
experiences that currently define the senior leadership team, employee satisfaction within their
respective business units, where succession talent is sourced, the process of selecting succession
talent, and how the lack of women of color on succession plans makes leaders feel. The
researcher compiled qualitative interview data and identified themes between specific actions
and beliefs of senior leaders related to employee satisfaction for women of color and succession
planning.
115
Interview procedures. Due to the timing of succession talent reviews between April 1
and June 1 each year, the semi-structured formal interviews with senior leaders occurred during
this two-month period. Interviews were conducted via Zoom, an internet-based video conference
platform, in a quiet office or private location to allow the researcher and interviewee to be face-
to-face regardless of location. Additionally, the Zoom interviews were recorded to allow for
playback and interpretation of verbal and nonverbal communication with each leader. Finally,
Zoom automatically transcribes recorded videos, which allowed the researcher to focus on the
leaders’ responses and not become distracted by taking notes. The duration of each interview
was one hour, with 45 minutes reserved to ask questions and 15 minutes for technology
troubleshooting.
Credibility and Trustworthiness
While Maxwell (2013) believes researchers cannot fully capture reality, the protocols and
procedures of this research design support the credibility and trustworthiness of this qualitative
study. Through the use of member checks to confirm the understanding of succession planning
processes and leaders’ beliefs, the researcher combined findings on the experience of identifying,
selecting and approving individuals for their own succession plans and the efforts to increase
employee satisfaction for women of color (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). Also, the researcher
sought information that supported alternative explanations to verify patterns and understandings
of how senior leaders select successors (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). Finally, as a woman of color,
the researcher demonstrated reflexivity throughout the interview to disclose any potential bias
and ensure to senior leaders that the interview remained objective (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016).
These three measures maintained the credibility of the study, and the researcher’s ethical
116
behavior and role within the organization, maintained the researcher’s trustworthiness in this
study.
Interview Questions for Leadership Team Members
Purpose
The purpose of this interview is to evaluate your attitudes regarding your leadership team
membership, the practice of succession planning, and your perspectives on employee satisfaction
within the organization.

Confidentiality and Anonymity
No identifiable information will be obtained in connection with this study. This data may be used
for future research studies. If you do not want your data used in future studies, you should not
participate. Your participation in this research study is voluntary.

The members of the research team and the University of Southern California’s Human Subjects
Protection Program (HSPP) may access the data. The HSPP reviews and monitors research
studies to protect the rights and welfare of research subjects and you may withdraw your
participation at any time during or after the interview.

Duration
This interview will take approximately 60 minutes to complete.

Questions?
If you have any questions about the research study, please contact Lauren Young, designer of the
research and Doctor of Education candidate in the University of Southern California's Rossier
School of Education Organizational Change and Leadership program, at younglau@usc.edu.

I would like to start by asking about your experience as a leadership team member.

1. How were you selected to join the U.S. leadership team at Brighton House? What was
different about you that made you a candidate for a leadership role?

2. What perspective did you add to the team that did not exist prior to your appointment?

3. In which areas could the current U.S. leadership team at Brighton House benefit from
new perspectives?

Thank you for sharing those recommendations. Let’s transition to talking about
your business unit and employee satisfaction.

4. How often do you review the overall Employee Net Promoter Score (ENPS) feedback for
Brighton House? How often do you review the ENPS feedback for your business unit?

117
5. In 2017, overall ENPS for Brighton House was -19. It has improved over time; however,
the organization has still not reached its target score of +50. What strategies has your
business unit implemented to increase the overall ENPS since 2017?

6. The 2019 ENPS for your business unit is [insert number], while the overall 2019 ENPS
for Brighton House is +23. Which groups within your business unit are you focused on to
improve ENPS over the next year?

7. After doing some research, the demographic with the lowest employee satisfaction
among all employees in Brighton House is composed of African American women,
Latinx women, Asian American women and other self-reported women of color.
Additionally, the 2019 ENPS for women of color within your business unit is [insert
number]. How does it make you feel to know this data?

8. How will knowing this data affect your strategy to increase ENPS for your business unit
over the next year? How will knowing this data affect your strategy to increase ENPS for
Brighton House over the next year?

Thank you! I would like to pivot to talk about another strategy the U.S. leadership has in
place to increase employee satisfaction, and it is related to succession planning. First, I’d
like to start with some questions about the process leadership implements when seeking
potential successors.

9. From where is the U.S. leadership team succession talent sourced?

10. Which skills should be demonstrated for an employee to be considered for a leadership
team member’s succession plan?

11. How is succession talent formally identified for executive roles at Brighton House? (Or,
what is the process to move from informally identifying succession talent to formally
adding talent to your succession plan?)

12. What role does gender play on the identification of succession talent for leadership roles?

13. What role does race and ethnicity play on the identification of succession talent for
leadership roles?

14. What factors negatively impact the process to succession talent for leadership roles? (Or,
what factors prevent leaders from adding intended talent to their succession plan in the
U.S.?)

15. If a U.S. leader member receives opposition from the world headquarters about talent
selections in their succession plan, what recourse does the U.S. leader have to advocate
for the original selections to remain on his or her succession plan?

118
16. In instances when a U.S. leader’s recommendation for succession talent was not
supported, what steps have they taken to overcome the opposition?

17. In 2018, the leadership team established a goal to improve employee satisfaction as
measured by ENPS for women of color within the U.S. The strategy created to achieve
this goal is to add 20 women of color to the leadership team’s succession plans by 2023.
Currently, the ENPS for women of color in your business unit is [insert number] and your
succession plan contains [insert number] women of color. How would you describe your
efforts to reach the leadership team goal to-date?

18. What support do you need to help increase employee satisfaction for women of color?

Thank you for your insight! I have a few questions remaining to complete this interview.

19. What efforts are leaders encouraged to make at Brighton House to develop talent for their
succession plans?

20. In your opinion, who is responsible for developing talent for leadership roles at Brighton
House?

21. Earlier in the interview, you mentioned the current leadership team could benefit most
from having new perspectives on [insert answer from Question 3]. In your opinion, how
important is having these new perspectives come from women of color, specifically?

119
Appendix B: Ethics
Within a qualitative study, Merriam and Tisdell (2016) express that ethical dilemmas can
occur in both the data collection stage and the reporting stage. The researcher fully informed the
leaders of the purpose of the study, protected the confidentiality of the organization and the
respondents, and secured coded data received from the interviews. According to Glesne (2011),
getting informed consent from interview participants in advance ensures: (1) participation is
voluntary, (2) participants are aware of any aspects of the research that might affect their well-
being and (3) participants are free to stop participation at any point in the interview or study. The
researcher had each interview subject sign an informed consent form in advance of the study to
record the interview via Zoom and take notes with pen and paper or scribe notes on a digital
device. To maintain the confidentiality of the organization and participants, the researcher
maintained a separate codebook with unique numbers associated to the interview notes of each
participant. Additionally, the researcher submitted this study to the University of Southern
California’s Institutional Review Board (IRB) to ensure procedures regarding the protection of
the rights and welfare of the participants in this study.
As a consultant for Brighton House, the researcher’s role in this study is natural because
senior leadership is accustomed to participating in consulting projects which require qualitative
data collection. To distinguish the role as a consultant for the organization from the role as a
qualitative researcher for this study, Glesne (2011) suggests that researchers are careful not to
take the role of an intervener or reformer. Senior leadership is accustomed to the researcher
hosting meetings on various business strategies, so it was be critical that leaders did not look to
the researcher for judgment of their knowledge and skills, motivation or organizational impact in
relation to eliminating barriers for cultural and gender diversity in leadership. To delineate the
120
roles as a consultant and a researcher, the researcher informed study participants that the
information collected from the interview for the purpose of this study will be held confidential
and separate from consulting work. The researcher also informed subjects that the purpose of the
study was to evaluate the impact of one aspect about the organization and not to focus on
creating a solution for this aspect. Finally, as a woman of color who asked senior leadership
about the impact of diversity and inclusion in relation to employee satisfaction for women of
color, the researcher conducted a non-biased interview as the primary research instrument
(Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). The researcher confirmed IRB ethical codes to guide behavior and
maintain continuous communication with research participants throughout the study, as
recommended by Glesne (2011).

121
Appendix C: Evaluation Instrument
Checklist for Virtual Learner Engagement with Senior Leadership
In an online environment, facilitators need to conduct the following activities to ensure senior
leaders remain engaged in the learning process:

Establish an agenda with timing for each learning segment
Build breaks into the session after 45 minutes of continuous content
Request that leaders refrain from engaging in outside activities during the session
(e.g. sending emails or text messages, taking calls, etc.)
Request that all leaders keep their web cameras on for the duration of the session
Ask all leaders to keep their microphones muted unless they are speaking
Instruct all leaders on how to use the technology to interact (e.g. raise hand
feature, chat window, etc.)
Encourage all leaders to provide their perspectives
Watch for signs of agreement (e.g. head nodding, smiling) and disagreement (e.g.
head shaking, head tilting)
Request that all leaders be respectful of each other during the session
Thank all leaders for their time and attention

If leaders exhibit any of the following behaviors, they may not be engaged in the learning
process:

Pausing web camera or
turning off web camera
Reclining away from camera
or poor posture
Showing up to the session
late (or leaving early)
Unwillingness to participate
in discussions or derailing
discussions
Walking away from the
session outside of designated
break times
Being disrespectful of
other leaders (or the
facilitator) during the
session
Disagreeable or indifferent
body language
Asking questions that have
already been answered
Not attending the session
without informing the
facilitator in advance

122
Appendix D: Survey Questions for Post-Session Evaluations
In addition to providing live feedback about learnings from each session, senior leaders will also
complete a two-question online survey at the end of each session.

End of Session 1 Survey - DIVERSITY

1. In the United States, which of the
following diverse characteristics protect
individuals from discrimination and
harassment by federal law? Choose all
that apply.

a. Race
b. Sex
c. Religion
d. National Origin
e. Sexual Orientation
f. Gender Identity
g. Pregnancy
h. Familial Status
i. Genetic Information
j. Disability Status
k. Veteran Status

2. Describe your level of confidence in
speaking to others about diversity.
What contributes to this
level of confidence for you?

End of Session 2 Survey - INCLUSION

1. Which is the best example of creating
inclusion in the workforce?

a. Hiring more diverse employees
for open roles
b. Speaking about diversity and inclusion
on a customer panel
c. Mentoring diverse employees to
prepare them for career progression
d. Encouraging managers to promote
more diverse employees

2. Describe your level of confidence in
speaking to others about inclusion.
What contributes to this level of
confidence for you?
End of Session 3 Survey - EQUITY

1. How can we best measure equity at
Brighton House?

a. Metrics
b. Policies and procedures
c. Demographics
d. Retention rates for people of color

2. Describe your level of confidence in
speaking to others about equity. What
contributes to this
level of confidence for you?
End of Session 4 Survey - BELONGING

1. Which of the following is correct about
belonging? Choose all that apply.

a. Belonging is the result of diversity +
inclusion + equity
b. Belonging is measured via the
Employee Net Promoter Score (ENPS)
c. Belonging is synonymous with
employee satisfaction
d. If employees lack a sense of
belonging, it is likely they also have low
employee satisfaction

2. Describe your level of confidence in
speaking to others about belonging.
What contributes to this level of
confidence for you?
123
Appendix E: 30/60/90-Day Post-Learning Self-Evaluation Survey
How have you applied what you learned about
diversity, inclusion, equity, and belonging?

DIVERSITY

On a scale of 1 (low amount of effort) to 10 (high amount of effort), please rate
your efforts in the following areas:
Effort
Score
(1-10)
Reviewed talent in my organization to become familiar with more women of color
Participated in conversations about diversity with my accountability partner
Created a strategy with DEI executive to engage in actions to prepare women of
color for future leadership roles

INCLUSION

On a scale of 1 (low amount of effort) to 10 (high amount of effort), please rate
your efforts in the following areas:
Effort
Score
(1-10)
Recommended or required a behavior change for my leadership team to promote
inclusion within my business unit

Participated in conversations about unconscious bias with my leadership team
Reviewed ENPS results for women of color within my organization

EQUITY

On a scale of 1 (low amount of effort) to 10 (high amount of effort), please rate
your efforts in the following areas:
Effort
Score
(1-10)
Reviewed the succession planning job aid
Participated in conversations about equity with my HR business partner
Created a strategy with organizational leaders to discuss changes to existing
policies and/or procedures to allow for more equity for women of color and other
diverse groups

124
BELONGING

On a scale of 1 (low amount of effort) to 10 (high amount of effort), please rate
your efforts in the following areas:
Effort
Score
(1-10)
Recommended at least one woman of color for my succession plan
Participated in conversations about belonging with the senior leadership team
Added at least one women of color to my succession plan

Abstract (if available)

Abstract This evaluation study uses the Clark and Estes (2008) gap analysis framework to review knowledge, motivation, and organization influences on the goal to increase employee satisfaction for women of color in corporations by adding them to succession plans for leadership roles. This qualitative study features one-on-one interviews with a sample of the senior leadership team from a U.S. corporation. The findings indicate a need to educate senior leadership in the areas of diversity, inclusion, equity, and belonging through shared declarative, procedural and metacognitive knowledge gaps. Additionally, the findings provide insight about low expectancy value and the presence of cultural models and settings that allow senior leaders create barriers to increase employee satisfaction for women of color. This study recommends learning strategies and measurement tools to address knowledge, motivation, and organization gaps and aid senior leadership with goal attainment.

Linked assets

University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

Conceptually similar

PDF

Raising women leaders of Christian higher education: an innovation study

PDF

Sustaining faith-based organizations through leadership pipelines and programs: an evaluation study

PDF

The moderating role of knowledge, motivation, and organizational influences on employee turnover: A gap analysis

PDF

Mentoring as a capability development tool to increase gender balance on leadership teams: an innovation study

PDF

Supporting women business owners: the Inland Empire Women’s Business Center: an evaluation study

PDF

Affluent teens and school stress: an evaluation study

PDF

Customer satisfaction with information technology service quality in higher education: an evaluation study

PDF

Frontline workers serving students: a study on the well-being of student affairs professionals during the COVID-19 pandemic

PDF

Physician burnout during a global pandemic: an evaluation study

PDF

The racially responsive facilitator: an evaluation study

PDF

Primary care physicians' experiences working within the patient-portal to improve the quality of patient care

PDF

Quality literacy instruction in juvenile court schools: an evaluation study

PDF

First-generation college students and persistence to a degree: an evaluation study

PDF

The successful implementation of diversity and inclusion efforts: a study of promising practice

PDF

Implementing proactive safety strategies in place of reactive safety strategies at a manufacturing organization: an evaluation study

PDF

Enhancing socially responsible outcomes at a major North American zoo: an innovation study

PDF

The role of middle manager alignment in achieving effective strategy execution: an evaluation study

PDF

Employee retention and the success of a for-profit cosmetics company: a gap analysis

PDF

Development of intraorganizational post-merger collaboration plan: an evaluation study

PDF

Exploring the effectiveness of continuing medical education for physicians enrolled in an MBA program

Asset Metadata

Creator Young, Lauren Christine (author)

Core Title Succession for success: an evaluation study of corporate strategy to improve employee satisfaction for women of color

School Rossier School of Education

Degree Doctor of Education

Degree Program Organizational Change and Leadership (On Line)

Publication Date 10/23/2020

Defense Date 09/18/2020

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag diversity,employee satisfaction,OAI-PMH Harvest,succession planning,women of color

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Adibe, Bryant (committee chair), Datta, Monique (committee member), Wells Lepley, Meredith (committee member)

Creator Email lyoung6@gmail.com,younglau@usc.edu

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c89-384318

Unique identifier UC11666543

Identifier etd-YoungLaure-9053.pdf (filename),usctheses-c89-384318 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-YoungLaure-9053.pdf

Dmrecord 384318

Document Type Dissertation

Rights Young, Lauren Christine

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA